

LIBRARY OF CONGRESSJ 


ISlioll' 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 









^ y 




V-V' 


W 

m 





















I 


4 


r 

A. 

‘ j 

t» . 


-I 



[2D''.CTS. 


Appletons’ 


New Handy-Volume Series. 



THE HOUSE 

OF THE 

TWO BARBELS. 


BY 

ANDRE THEURIET. 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 


Copyright by D. Appleton & Co,, 1878. 


TLETON 

JiEW 

HAJiDY- 

VOLUHB 


Ww 


APPLETONS’ 


HAOY-YOLTJME SERIES. 


Brilliant Novelettes ; Romance, Adventure, Travel, Huinor ; Historic, 
Literary, and Society Monographs. 


Tie 

House 

Oltlf 

Two 

Barlels, 


The later developments of literary taste with American readers 
ndicate two things : first, a preference for compact and lucid out- 
iines of historic or literary periods, and for stories which, while 
8 yithin the compass of a single reading, shall have all the symmetry, 
be artistic treatment, the careful character-drawing, and the fresh- 
— ^ ess of incident, which mark the lengthier but scarcely more ambi- 
ious novel ; second, a demand for books in a form so convenient and 
andy that the volume may always be carried in the pocket, ready 
or use on the train, on the steamboat, in the horse-car, at moments 
natched at twilight or bedtime, while sitting on the. sea-shore or 
ambling in the woods — at all periods of rest or leisure, whether in 
own or country. 

In recognition of these preferences and needs, Appletons’ New 
Iandy-Volume Series is projected. The books in this series are 
>f a size convenient for the pocket, and yet large enough to admit 
)f bold and handsome type in order that they may be perused with- 
)ut fatigue, with that sense of restfulness and pleasure which well- 
)rinted volumes alone confer. They will appear rapidly, in uniform 
style, at low prices, and will draw their material from American, 
Snglish, and Continental sources, forming eventually a delightful li- 
jrary, varied i^ character and fairly exhaustless in the refined enter- 
ainment it w^,:^ afford. Fiction necessarily predominates in the 
)lan, but it is designed to make the range of selection comprehen- 
, jive, so as to include works of every variety of theme, from old 

" ' “Huthors as well as new, and attractive to students as well as general 

EW!0Rli\ ~ 

unleton *** volume in the series mailed post-paid to any address within the 
rP lited States, on receipt of the price. 

D. APPLETON! & CO., 549 A 551 Broadway, New York. 


'HIBRIET 


APPLETONS’ NEW HANDY-VOLUME SERIES. 


THE HOUSE 


OF THE 


TVO BAEBELS. 




NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

549 AND 551 BKOADWAY. 

1878. 


ANDRE THEURIET. 



COPTEIGHT BY 


D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


CHAPTEB I. 

In 1860 the commercial title ‘‘Lafrogne Fa- 
ther & Sons, Druggists of Villotte,” was still print- 
ed at the head of the bills of the house, although 
for many years Lafrogne the father had slept 
under the tall, waving grass in the cemetery Ste.- 
Marguerite. This establishment was well patron- 
ized, and was known throughout the Barrois un- 
der the name of ‘‘ The Shop of the Two Barbels,” 
thanks to the ingenious idea of the elder La- 
frogne, who had adopted as a sign the arms of 
Villotte — " two barbels back to back on an azure 
field strewed with small gold crosses.” * 

Situated in the Rue du Bourg, a part of the 
town where there were as many dwelling-houses 
as shops, the Maison Lafrogne is to-day as pure a 
specimen of Lorraine architecture of the sixteenth 

* A barbel is a large fresh-water fish, of the carp species, 
having on either side of the mouth two beard-like appendages, 
whence its name. 


4 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 

century as is to be found in France. The fa9ade 
is built of granite from Savonnieres, and has ac- 
quired, with time, warm tones of the most ex- 
quisite gray. The door is of solid wood, deli- 
cately carved, and ornamented with a huge iron 
knocker, and is set in a deep arch, the key of 
which is a cherub, with inflated cheeks. Above 
the arch is an entablature, where were once 
carved the arms of the seigneur, but now dis- 
playing only a prosaic number. Under the win- 
dows are sirens sculptured in high-relief. Their 
swelling busts and laughing faces emerge from a 
tangle of vine-leaves, and support on their deli- 
cate heads the sloping sills. To connect the de- 
tails of this exquisite ornamentation, and to make 
of them an harmonious whole, light fluted pilas- 
ters divide the casements into small, greenish 
squares. Upon their Corinthian capitals rests the 
frieze of an attic pierced by dormer-windows ; 
while above, again, runs a cornice, whose two 
extremities flnish with stone gutters, which on 
stormy days unceremoniously pour down a steady 
stream of water upon the unlucky passers-by in 
the street below. 

The building consists of two distinct parts, 
separated by an inner court. In 1860 the portion 
fronting on the Rue du Bourg was reserved as a 
dwelling-house, while that in the rear, communi- 
cating with the Rue de la Municipalite, was de- 
voted to the presses and the stills, and above all 


THE HOUSE OP THE TWO BARBELS. 5 

to the shop, which occupied the entire first floor. 
Large, dark, but well-ventilated apartments opened 
one into another. All were lined with shelves 
and deep drawers. T^wo massive counters ran up 
and down the rooms, while near the walls stood 
huge casks filled to the brim with everything 
known to the pharmacopoeia — gamboge, copperas, 
Brazil-wood, madder, camomile-flowers, and ju- 
jubes. From the ceiling hung fagots of liquor- 
ice and bunches of wormwood and honey-wort, 
interspersed with gigantic masses of iris-root and 
poppy-heads. 

When the sun found its way through the dusty 
windows and cast its rays obliquely on these life- 
less branches, a cloud of fragrant atoms arose 
from every corner, filling the room with foreign 
odors and strange colors. From a half-open 
drawer came the faint, aromatic smell of vanilla, 
or a whiff of musk, arousing strange dreams of 
the far-away Antilles and of the marvelous flora 
of the East Indies. 

But, to tell the truth, there was little dream- 
ing in this House of the Ttjoo Barhels.^"^ The 
sons of Claude Lafrogne were not inclined to such 
idle waste of time. The eldest, Hyacinthe, was 
in the fifties ; while Germain, the younger, was 
nearly forty. ISTever having married, they re- 
sided with their aunt Lenette (diminutive of Mad- 
eleine), a hearty old lady of seventy-two, an old 
maid, and the sister of their mother, who had 


6 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 

rocked them in their cradles, and had brought 
them up ; teaching them their catechism and 
watching over them in sickness and in health 
with the utmost devotion. ^Mademoiselle Lenette 
was the main-spring of the house ; she kept all 
the keys, paid all the bills, ordered the meals, and, 
in fact, assumed the whole responsibility of the 
household. She was tall and thin, and perfectly 
erect, quick in her movements, and fastidiously 
neat ; very religious, and exacting toward herself 
and others, always rising before daybreak, and 
never allowing her servants much time for gap- 
ing and lounging. In short. Aunt Lenette was a 
woman of great sense, and judgment — much re- 
spected by her nephews, who never concluded 
any important step or business transaction with- 
out first consulting her. 

Hyacinthe was her Benjamin, although he had 
disappointed the hopes and ambition of the fam- 
ily. At college he acquired a high reputation. 
His father cherished the hope of seeing his eld- 
est son on the bench, and had sent him, at the 
age of twenty, to study law in Paris ; and, as 
Aunt Lenette could not make up her mind to aban- 
don him, unprotected, to the temptations of that 
pernicious town, she had followed him there. Liv- 
ing in the rear of Saint-Sulpice, Rue du Caniver, 
obliged to pass through his aunt’s room to enter 
his own, Hyacinthe had lived four years in Paris 
without suspecting either the dangers or the 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


.7 


pleasures of that great town. He returned to 
Villotte with his diploma, and with all the serene 
innocence of a youth who had seen the world 
only through the smoke of the incense burned at 
the altar of Saint-Sulpice. Ingenuous and diffi- 
dent as a young girl, artless as a child, his sim- 
plicity was absolutely touching ; he did not be- 
lieve in the existence of evil. Duplicity and chi- 
canery, and all tortuous ways, were sealed books 
to him — how, then, could he make even a respect- 
able lawyer ? 

The history of Hyacinthe’s only lawsuit is 
told in Villotte to this day as the best of jokes. 
He had been ordered to defend a woman accused 
of stealing a pair of hose. The offense was pat- 
ent, the accused having been found in possession 
of the stolen goods. Hyacinthe nevertheless in- 
sisted on the innocence of his client. 

‘‘Gentlemen ! ” he exclaimed, in unfeigned emo- 
tion, “ when Pharaoh, King of Egypt, sought for 
the cup of which he had been robbed, it was found 
in Benjamin’s sack, and yet Benjamin was inno- 
cent. Such is the case with my client.” 

“ Pardon me, M. Lafrogne,” interrupted the 
president, who was not the most amiable of men. 
“ Benjamin had not himself placed the cup in his 
sack, while your client had certainly put on the 
stockings. Your argument has a flaw in its foun- 
dation.” 

The bailiff, the clerk, and the attorneys, burst 


8 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


into a roar of laughter, which so embarrassed the 
debutant that he stammered, and, cutting short 
his harangue, sat down, acutely mortified. The 
cause was argued, but Hyacinthe quitted the 
court-room, vowing to himself that never again 
would he cross its threshold. “ Spices for spices,” 
he said to his father, “ I would rather sell them 
than receive them ! ” And this was the only re- 
mark he permitted himself. 

At fifty he was little different from what he 
was at twenty-four. His hair was growing gray, 
but his cheeks were rosy, and his blue eyes had re- 
tained their boyish clearness and frankness of ex- 
pression. He had never known any other woman 
than Aunt Lenette ; he was afraid of the sex, and 
had never been able to make up his mind to mar- 
ry. Domestic in his habits, and even something 
of a recluse, he was contented at home — kept the 
books, and occupied himself with the correspond- 
ence of the house, and amused himself in the 
evening by reading classical tragedies and ro- 
mances of chivalry. Sometimes on Sundays he 
was to be seen after vespers on the banks of the 
canal, walking with his tall, slight figure some^ 
what bowed. He still wore, as in his childhood, 
slender gold rings in his ears; he was dressed in a 
long dark-brown redingote ; his shirts, fashioned 
after an old mode, had ruffles on the front, laid in 
plaits, over which fell awkwardly the ends of a 
tumbled black cravat. His pantaloons of lasting 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


9 


were so short that they showed his stockings knit 
by Mademoiselle Lenette, and his shoes with dan- 
gling strings ; in his whole appearance there was 
something quaint and old-fashioned; the artless- 
ness and irresolution of his character seemed to 
have imprinted themselves on his person and gar- 
ments. Germain, the younger, was equally timid 
and shy, but in other respects of a totally different 
temperament. The brothers agreed on one point, 
however — in their aversion to matrimony. While 
they differed in tastes, character, and appearance, 
while Germain was an indefatigable pedestrian, 
and a keen lover of the chase, Hyacinthe was 
quiet, sedentary, loved his fireside like a domes- 
ticated cat, and shunned all noise and violent 
exercise, Germain was tall and broad-shouldered, 
fresh in color, with a full beard and quick eye, a 
nose like an eagle’s beak, superb white teeth, and 
a loud, sonorous voice, as cheery as a bugle-call. 
All the time he could snatch from his business 
was devoted to hunting. From September to 
March his horn and the baying of his dogs re- 
sounded through the woods in the vicinity of 
Villotte. He had more knowledge of the world 
than Hyacinthe, and was therefore less virtuous. 
Gossiping tongues went so far as to say that 
escapades in the direction of Cytherea were not 
unusual with him, but on this point he was al- 
ways most silent and reserved, and there is rea- 
son to believe that his gallant adventures were 


10 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


nothing more than the brief amusements of a 
Nimrod. 

These differences in character by no means 
prevented the brothers from living in entire unity. 
They created for themselves, with the addition of 
Aunt Lenette, a little world of three persons, quite 
enough they each thought. From the 1st of J an- 
uary to December 31st, their lives flowed on peace- 
ably and methodically. In winter, when their shop 
was closed, they assembled in the dining-room, 
and waited before the crackling fire for supper to 
be served. Hyacinthe read, Germain cleaned his 
gun, while their aunt applied herself industriously 
to her knitting, and the only servant, Catherine, 
sat at her spinning-wheel in the same room with 
her masters. 

On Sunday, Hy«^inthe, who was very pious, 
went to high mass at Notre-Dame, with Aunt 
Lenette, who was arrayed in an antique garment 
of maroon-colored silk, and a white shawl with 
a border of many-colored palm-leaves ; on their 
way home they stopped at the confectioner’s in the 
Rue Entre-Deux-Ponts, and bought four hot pdtes^ 
which invariably formed the extra of their Sun- 
day dinner, and which Hyacinthe carried home 
with great care in a brown paper. 

In summer, immediately after St.-John’s-day, 
the aunt and Germain installed themselves at a 
small farm owned by the family at Rembercourt, 
on the shores of the Ornain, and about six kilo- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. H 


metres from the town. Mademoiselle Lenette 
passed the whole summer there, and made her 
sweetmeats and conserves, and dried her fruits, 
returning to Yillotte in October, in time for the 
semi-annual wash. 

The simple modesty of this regular life per- 
mitted the Lafrognes to lay aside a large part of 
their yearly income, which amounted to some 
twenty-five thousand francs, of which amount 
they expended barely six thousand ; and finally 
these accumulated revenues doubled their capital. 
The Villotte people had much to say in regard to 
the parsimonious habits of the two brothers : in 
their small social circle they were accused of 
being stingy, and were regarded as two bears 
whom it was useless to try to civilize ; but trades- 
people, even while ridiculing the dress, habits, and 
manners of the brothers, respected them profoundly 
on account of their wealth and commercial solidi- 
ty. And the lower classes, who have a singular 
aptitude in grasping the droll side of things, and 
characterizing with a word the foibles of their 
superiors, had given them the name of “ The 
Two Barbels.” This harmless witticism of the 
villagers did not rasp the epidermis of the Bar- 
bels. They let them laugh, and every Sunday, 
they, with their aunt, and an old friend of Hya- 
cinthe’s named Nivard, ridiculed in their turn 
the households of the small notaries and lawyers 
who ruined themselves with good living, while 


12 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


their children went to school with holes in their 
stockings, and their grown daughters dressed 
Saint-Catherine’s hair.* 

They found infinite consolation for all the jokes 
that were leveled at them in the sweet serenity of 
their quiet lives, which had been unclouded since 
the death of Lafrogne the elder. 

Aunt Lenette spared them all household cares. 
They had no knowledge of the annoyances which 
poison the existence of bachelors. They found 
their linen always ready for them, and in perfect 
order ; their dinner served on the stroke of twelve ; 
their winter overcoats duly lined and quilted with 
the first frost ; and their linen clothes fresh and 
sweet, as soon as June suns poured down on the 
Rue du Bourg. They needed nothing ; every 
want was supplied and anticipated ; and, to com- 
plete their charmed existence, certain prosperous 
investments now secured them against the hazards 
of commercial enterprises and the dangers of rev- 
olutions. 

Their farm at Rembercourt was most produc- 
tive ; their timber-land in the Bois de Fains was 
the admiration of every one ; and their vineyard, 
lying in full sunshine on the hill-side, terminated 
in a protected ravine, which was called the Cu- 
gnot, where the reflection from the stone-walls on 
either side ripened oranges to perfection. Their 
vines yielded a vin de Pineau which, for delicacy 
^ A French phrase for old maid. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 13 

of bouquet and depth of color, had no equal in 
the district. 

Years slipped away in this calm contentment, 
when, one evening in March, 1862, a most unex- 
pected event disturbed the tranquillity of this 
peaceful household — as a stone, thrown into a 
bush, frightens a flock of starlings who are calm- 
ly pecking there. 

It was twilight, and Catherine had just brought 
in the lamp and placed it at Hyacinthe’s side, who 
was reading the history of “ La Belle Melusine.” 
Mademoiselle Lenette was laying the cloth ; and 
Germain, who had just come in after a long tramp 
in search of woodcocks, was taking off his muddy 
gaiters, when a knock was heard at the street-door. 
In a few moments, Catherine, who had gone to 
open it, called from the end of the corridor : 

“ Madame, it is the postman, with a letter for 
you. He says that he wants eight sous, because 
too few stamps have been put upon it.” 

“ Too few stamps ! ” exclaimed Germain. 

Confound those stupid creatures who mail their 
letters without weighing them ! ” 

“ Shall I refuse to take it ? ” asked his aunt. 

‘‘ By no means ! ” interposed the scrupulous 
Hyacinthe. “Never refuse a letter. I will go 
and see about it.” 

He disappeared into the darkness of the cor- 
ridor, at the extremity of which the postman’s 
lantern shone under the porch like a gigantic glow- 


14 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


worm ; then, having paid the eight sous, he re- 
turned, bearing a large, square envelope with a 
wide, black border. “ It is heavy, to be sure,” he 
said ; “ it has the Paris post-mark, and is addressed 
to you, aunt.” 

“ How strange ! ” murmured the old maid, with 
a startled air. “ Read it, Hyacinthe ; my spec- 
tacles are not here.” 

Hyacinthe tore open the envelope, and drew 
out a sheet of glossy paper as thick almost as 
pasteboard. “Upon my word,” exclaimed Hya- 
cinthe, “ I am not astonished at the weight. What 
extravagance ! When persons indulge in such 
caprices,” he grumbled, “ they had best go to the 
additional expense of another stamp. What crazy 
writing I” he continued, as he drew nearer the 
light and began to read aloud : 

“ My dear relative — ” 

He stopped with an exclamation of astonish- 
ment, which was echoed by Germain, as well as 
by Mademoiselle Lenette, who was placing the 
plates on the table, and suddenly arrested her em- 
ployment. 

“ Ah ! ” said she, “ that letter must be from 
our cousin in Paris. Go on, Hyacinthe.” 

Hyacinthe resumed : “ My dear relative : Al- 
though we are hardly known to each other, you 
will permit me to recall myself to your memory 
in the melancholy position in which I find my- 
self. Perhaps you are ignorant of the blow that 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 15 


has fallen upon us. My husband, Monsieur de 
Coulaines, died a year ago. When this affliction 
overwhelmed me, I was so utterly crushed by it 
that I delegated to friends the painful task of 
conveying the information to you, and it is pos- 
sible that my subsequent letter failed to reach 
you. Will you excuse all these omissions ? — and, 
although distance has for a long time interfered 
with our intercourse, I yet feel certain of the 
sympathy of my father’s sister in all my trials ; 
consequently, I venture to write to you and ask 
your advice. 

‘‘My poor husband, who was in trade, died 
leaving his affairs greatly involved ; and, when 
things are all settled, my income will not exceed 
three thousand francs. This is very littje, even 
in the country ; but, in Paris, it is absolute pov- 
erty, particularly when, as is the case with myself, 
one has a daughter of eighteen. Laurence has just 
finished her examination at the H6tel-de-Ville, 
and she has a diploma which will insure her find- 
ing a position almost anywhere as a teacher ; but, 
while she is looking for a good situation, I must 
look out for the necessities of life, and I have re- 
signed myself to leaving Paris and taking up my 
residence in the country. This decision finally 
arrived at, I naturally permitted my thoughts 
and wishes to turn toward the town where I was 
born, and where still reside some of my relatives. 
I come now, dear aunt, to entreat you to give me 


16 THE HOUSE or THE TWO BARBELS. 


the benefit of your advice and experience. I 
would like to find a small apartment, at once suit- 
able and modest, at a rent of four hundred francs. 
My cousins, whose acquaintance I shall be most 
happy to make, will undoubtedly have little diffi- 
culty in finding such a place. I only await your 
reply to make my arrangements for moving my 
household goods ; intending, if it be favorable, 
to leave Paris with Laurence early in April. 

“ Pray excuse the liberty I take, and accept 
the affectionate regards of your niece — who em- 
braces you most cordially, and also wishes to be 
remembered to her cousins. 

“ Rosine de Coulaines.” 

A moment or two of absolute silence followed 
the reading of this letter, while Hyacinthe me- 
chanically folded the paper, which crackled be- 
tween his fingers. 

‘‘ This is a pretty piece of business, upon my 
word ! ” suddenly exclaimed Germain. “ Only 
Parisians could behave in this way ! A relative, 
whom we should not know from Eve, and with 
whom we have had no personal intercourse for 
thirty years, and certainly have not exchanged 
two letters in that length of time, appears in this 
sudden way ! ” 

Mademoiselle Lenette did not reply. She was 
buried in thought, and with a slight frown on her 
brow, apparently seeking to recall some lost rec- 
ollection. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. I7 


‘‘ If these ladies should come to live at Villotte, 
we shall have to ask them here continually,” said 
Hyacinthe, a cold shiver running down his back 
at the idea of receiving the two Parisians. 

“ Throw the letter into the waste-basket, and 
forget all about it,” exclaimed Germain, with 
some excitement. “We have never seen them, 
and I really fail to see why we should allow our- 
selves to be completely upset by two absolute 
strangers — ” 

“ They are your cousins — my brother Thoire’s 
own children,” objected Mademoiselle Lenette, 
arousing herself suddenly from her meditation. 

“ But, Aunt Lenette, you never spoke to us of 
these cousins ! ” 

‘‘ That is very true. I had, in fact, almost 
forgotten them. After his installation at Paris, 
my brother Edmond Thoire forgot us for a time. 
His daughter married a Monsieur de Coulaines, 
a day-dreamer, whose head was full of won- 
derful inventions, and whose pocket was always 
empty. I remember that he once tried to bor- 
row money from your father. Lafrogne refused 
point-blank, which, of course, caused a cool- 
ness between the two families, and finally they 
ceased to write. His widow and her child are 
not the less your nearest relatives, my children ; 
and, in fact, are your only ones.” 

“ Pshaw ! ” cried Germain. “ We do not need 
any relatives, my dear aunt. We three are quite 
2 


18 the house of the two barbels. 


enough. And, as we are happy, we have all that 
is essential.” 

“ You are right, my boy, and I do not com- 
plain. And yet,” continued Mademoiselle Le- 
nette with a melancholy glance at the old barom- 
eter hung between the windows, “ I cannot avoid 
a certain feeling of sadness when I look back fifty 
years, and remember how large our family was, 
and see what sad work Time has made with it. 
If my father, Jean Thoire, should return to this 
world, he would be disposed to grumble sorely at 
seeing his house without children, for he always 
declared that his three daughters and his son 
should populate the Rue du Bourg. I remember 
that the very last time we were all together was 
the occasion of your baptism, Germain. My brother 
Thoire, the father of this Rosine who now writes 
to me, came expressly from Paris for the occasion, 
and brought his little girl with him. My sister 
Loulette was here too, and the whole family, in 
fact, were assembled. ‘My daugher,’ said my 
father, ‘ I wish before the ceremony to see you all, 
my children and my grandchildren, assembled in 
the same apartment ; ’ and so we all went up to 
the green-room, where your mother Mimi, who 
was just recovering from her confinement, lay in 
bed. And you lay in your cradle at her side. 
When we were all assembled around your mother, 
my father said, ‘ Let us count them ; ’ and he 
found that we were seven, including little Rosine, 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 19 


Hyacinthe, and the new baby. We all stood in 
the order of our age, my father first, then my 
brother Edmond, who was the eldest, then Lou- 
lette, followed by myself, then Mimi in her big 
bed, and the children around the cradle. 

‘ Ah ! my dear children,’ exclaimed my fa- 
ther, ‘ I am happy to see you all once more in my 
house. Come and kiss me ! ’ 

‘‘ Then he kissed my brother Edmond, the one 
we called Thoire for short, because he was the 
elder ; Edmond kissed Loulette, and in this way 
the family kiss made the rounds until it reached 
little Rosine, who gave it last to you, Germain, 
standing on tiptoe to put her head into your cra- 
dle, which was high up ; and since that time we 
have never been all together,” added Aunt Le- 
nette, using her handkerchief violently to conceal 
her emotion. 

Hyacinthe in his turn dashed away a tear 
from the corner of his eye, and Germain ap- 
proached his aunt and kissed her with some so- 
lemnity. 

You see the reason,” continued Mademoiselle 
Lenette, replacing her handkerchief in her pocket, 
in the depths of which rattled her keys, “ that you 
must not be too hard toward this cousin, who is a 
Thoire, after all. Nevertheless, my children, you 
are, of course, the masters of your own house, and 
whatever you do will be right.” 

I agree with you, aunt, and I will write to 


20 the house of the two barbels. 

them to-morrow,” said Hyacinthe with a sigh, 
“ and tell them that they may come.” 

“ That is settled, then,” added Germain, “ and 
I, of course, must look them up a dwelling-place. 
And now let us have supper, for I am famished.” 


CHAPTER IL 

Fifteen days later Hyacinthe, having received 
a letter from Madame de Coulaines, buttoned him- 
self into his nut-colored overcoat, and repaired to 
the station to meet his cousins, who were to come 
by the five-o’clock train. April had arrived, but, 
as often happens in this good province of Barrois, 
the new month opened atrociously. A northwest 
wind drove many black clouds over the sky ; 
these clouds broke in occasional down-pours of 
rain ; the gutters on the roofs, filled by the con- 
stant showers, poured their contents upon the 
flag-stones below, and over the gardens on the 
Quai des Gravieres, where the fruit-trees covered 
with blossoms seemed to shiver in their white 
spring toilet. 

Hyacinthe, as he stood chilled through and 
through near the gate which separated him from 
the railway-track, had infinite difficulty in protect- 
ing his nut-colored overcoat under a huge um- 
brella of brown alpaca. A sharp whistle was 
heard from the bottom of the valley, and a few 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 21 

moments later the puffing engine drew up in front 
of the little station. 

A dozen or more peasants descended first from 
the third^lass cars ; then came two young and ele- 
gant-looking women from a first-class compart- 
ment. Lafrogne, who had never in his life trav- 
eled in that way, looked with absolute stupefac- 
tion at these two elegant women in their faultless 
black toilets, and could not believe that they were 
the poor relations he was expecting. He looked 
around, but could see no other travelers nearer his 
preconceived ideas, although everybody had left 
the cars, and the doors were already closed and 
locked. The two ladies, raising their skirts, were 
reluctant to leave the porch of the station, and 
their anxious eyes seemed to be looking for some 
one on the sidewalk where the rain pattered down. 

Hyacinthe summoned all his courage, ap- 
proached, and, shaking his dripping umbrella, ad- 
dressed the elder of the ladies, asking timidly 
if it was not Madame de Coulaines to whom he 
had the honor of speaking. Then, coloring deep- 
ly, he added, “ I am Hyacinthe Lafrogne.” 

“ Oh, my dear cousin ! ” cried the lady, with 
eager volubility, “ how glad I am to see you ! 
But was there ever such weather ! We are 
drenched already.” 

She kissed him without ceremony, and pre- 
sented her daughter Laurence, who, half blinded 
by the rain which dashed in her face, extended her 


22 the house of the two barbels. 


hand while her large, black eyes examined the 
droll face of this singular cousin. 

“ What weather ! ” repeated Madame de CoU' 
laines. ‘‘Laurence, we must see about our lug- 
gage.” 

They entered the luggage-room ; the ladies 
selected at least a wagon-load, while Hyacinthe 
looked in astonishment at the pile of trunks and 
bags. 

“ Have you a carriage ? ” asked Madame de 
Coulaines. 

“ A carriage ! No, but I brought our boy, 
C4sarin, who can take a portion of your trunks on 
his barrow. As to ourselves, my dear cousin, we 
can easily go on foot.” 

“ On foot in this pouring rain ? ” cried the 
lady, looking first at the sky and then at the 
pavement. 

“ Oh ! it is only a shower,” stammered Hya- 
cinthe, humbly, “and we do not live very far 
from the station.” 

He gave his orders to Cesarin ; then, opening 
his large umbrella, offered his arm to Madame de 
Coulaines, and they set out. Laurence, under the 
insufficient shelter of her parasol, followed them, 
skipping from stone to stone, and occasionally 
looking down in a melancholy fashion at her high- 
heeled shoes, d la Molihre. They thus went 
through the Hue Entre-Deux-Ponts, where the 
shopkeepers from behind their windows stealth- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 23 


ily examined the Parisians escorted by one of the 
Barbels. 

“ Here we are ! ” exclaimed Hyacinthe, knock- 
ing at his own door. 

Catherine ran at the first touch of the knocker. 
Lafrogne ushered his relatives into the small ves- 
tibule, who shook their wet garments without any 
ceremony over the red and white tiles, scrupulous- 
ly swept and scrubbed each day by the old ser- 
vant. Erect in her woolen dress, and wearing 
her white fluted cap. Mademoiselle Lenette hur- 
ried forward to welcome her nieces, and received 
them on the threshold of the dining-room. Her 
piercing gray eyes surveyed the Parisians, but no 
change in her cold, prudent face revealed her 
impressions. She gravely embraced the mother 
and daughter, and bore without wincing their en- 
thusiastic greeting. Then, as Cesarin had by this 
time arrived with a detachment of the trunks, she 
insisted on showing the travelers to their rooms, 
that they might change their damp garments. 

The apartment dedicated to the use of Madame 
Coulaines and her daughter was situated on the first 
floor, opposite the rooms where Mademoiselle Le- 
nette and Germain slept. It consisted of one very 
large room, known from time immemorial as the 
green chamber, and an adjoining cabinet, where 
Aunt Lenette had been in the habit of locking 
up her dresses and sweetmeats. 

This is your room, Rosine,” said Mademoi- 


24 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 

selle Lenette, opening the large double door. 
— “ And this one is for you, my child,” she added, 
as she showed Laurence the glass door of the 
cabinet. “ You will remain with us until you can 
install yourselves in the lodgings which Germain 
has taken for you. Now make yourselves com- 
fortable, and, if you require anything, call Cathe- 
rine.” 

Cesarin had just deposited the last of the 
heavy trunks on the floor, and left the room with 
Aunt Lenette. 

‘‘ Thunder ! ” he exclaimed as he passed Cath- 
erine. “Your Parisians have brought trumpery 
enough with them, and given me no end of 
bother ! ” 

“ Don’t talk to me ; they are just full of airs ! ” 
grumbled the old servant, who was wiping the 
water and mud from her beloved tiles in the ves- 
tibule. 

For some time Madame de Coulaines and her 
daughter, uncomfortable and homesick as birds 
who have been put into new cages, sat chilled and 
motionless in “ the green chamber.” Without a 
carpet and without a fire, cheerless and cold — with 
a cracked mirror and scanty curtains of faded 
damask — the room was absolutely depressing. 
Laurence, seated on a trunk, looked with despond- 
ent eyes on the small round mats, laid at inter- 
vals between the door of entrance and the cabi- 
net, as if to indicate to the guests that their feet 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 25 


must tread there and not upon the waxed floor, 
which shone like a mirror. She took an inventory 
with a pitying air of the wStraw chairs and vases 
of artiflcial flowers — the toilet-table in the form 
of an antique tripod, the heavy table with a mar- 
ble slab, on which stood a carafe of cut glass, and 
a sugar-bowl to match. 

All this hospitable display on the part of the 
Lafrognes had elicited from Germain the evening 
before, when he was summoned to behold the re- 
sults of his aunt’s labors, an exclamation of ad- 
miration. 

“ Upon my word,” he cried, “ you have done 
wonders ! Our cousins will be lodged like prin- 
cesses.” 

The disdain on their faces was certainly most 
royal' ; but, if they resembled princesses, it was 
princesses exiled from their kingdom, and bitterly 
regretting their comfortable little home in the Rue 
du Bac. 

‘‘ Good Heavens ! ” cried Laurence, shrugging 
her shoulders, “ this room feels like a tomb. Do 
you suppose our cousins ever have any flres ? ” 
You do not understand,” said her mother ; 
“ our cousins are immensely rich ; but these are 
the parsimonious habits of the country.” 

“ That may be,” the young girl replied ; “ but 
I am literally frozen, and I shall never have cour- 
age to dress ! ” 

Finally, they threw off the benumbing influ- 


26 the house of the two barbels. 


ence of cold and fatigue which nailed them to 
their places. A respect for les convenances^ added 
to no small amount of characteristic coquetry, 
induced them to open their boxes and make a 
careful toilet. 

Laurence, who had just taken off her mourn- 
ing, replaced her traveling-dress with a costume 
of two shades of velvet, with sleeves and skirt of 
silk of the same color. Madame de Coulaines put 
on an elegant robe of black faille. All this took 
some time ; and when the two travelers descended 
it was seven o’clock. Supper was on the table ; 
Mademoiselle Lenette was growing impatient, while 
Germain, who had returned half -famished from a 
long day’s shooting, was anathematizing all dila- 
tory people. At the sight of his cousins arrayed, 
as it were, for a f^te, the two Barbels exchanged 
with their aunt a startled glance. Germain came 
forward and greeted his guests politely, while Ma- 
demoiselle Lenette exclaimed : 

“ Why did you take the trouble, my dear niece, 
to make a toilet ? No ceremony is necessary with 
us, I assure you ! ” 

“ And I had no such intention — we have only 
dressed as we do every day.” 

Dressed as they did every day ! The two 
brothers felt that their senses were deserting them. 
All that finery was in ordinary use, and they 
traveled first class. “ It’s no wonder,” they said 
to themselves, ‘‘ that they are at the end of their 
resources !” 


THE HOUSE OP THE TWO BAEBELS. 27 


As to Mademoiselle Lenette, she was absolutely 
shocked at seeing her niece, widowed only a year 
previously, wearing silk, which would appear par- 
ticularly scandalous in the eyes of the Yillotte 
people, where widows wore stuff -garments for at 
least two years. This first evening settled the 
Parisians in the estimation of the old lady, who 
henceforward regarded them as frivolous and dan- 
gerous creatures, and mademoiselle rarely changed 
her first impressions. 

They took their seats at the table, which had 
been somewhat enriched by several additional 
dishes in honor of the new arrival. Radishes and 
butter were in white porcelain dishes ; a fillet of 
veal was garnished with mushrooms, and these, 
with a roast leg of mutton, a chiccory-salad, and 
a rice-cake, seemed to the brothers the triumph 
of gastronomical luxury ; while Madame de Cou- 
laines and her daughter, imbued with the Parisian 
idea that in the country one has everything for 
nothing, looked upon the fare as so simple that 
it amounted to absolute niggardliness. At dessert 
a strong cheese, some sweetmeats, a plate of dried 
pears and cherries, completely undeceived these 
ladies in regard to the good living of their cous- 
ins at Villotte. 

The cloth was just removed, when the knocker 
on the street-door was heard, and Catherine an- 
nounced Monsieur Mvard, Hyacinthe’s friend. 

“ Oh, you have company ! ” cried the visitor. 


28 the house of the two barbels. 


before he had fairly crossed the sill of the dining- 
room. ‘‘Excuse me, I will not disturb you. I 
will go away.” 

“ By no means ! ” replied Hyacinthe, cordially ; 
“ these are our cousins from Paris — Madame de 
Coulaines and her daughter.” 

Monsieur Mvard knew this perfectly well, not- 
withstanding his exclamation of astonishment, and 
his intense curiosity that had impelled him that 
evening to lift the knocker on the Lafrognes’ door 
so that he might be the first to behold the famous 
cousins. 

He glided along toward the fire, bowing and 
murmuring excuses and apologies ; then took a 
seat directly opposite the strangers, who examined, 
with ill-concealed misgivings, this singular speci- 
men of the indigenous growth of Yillotte. 

Stephen Nivard, an old bachelor of forty-eight, 
and chief of bureau at the prefecture, afforded a 
most original subject for analysis. He was pre- 
maturely old and broken down ; he had not an 
eyebrow left, nor an eyelash, and not a vestige of 
beard. Upon his round face, as white and smooth 
as an egg, there were but three distinct details : a 
brown wig, which made a hard line across his 
forehead and temples ; a pimpled nose, denoting 
a persistent disorder of the blood ; and two small, 
greenish eyes, darting malicious, inquisitive glances 
from under their half -closed lids. 

At the sight of this wan and devastated coun- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 29 


tenance, one asked one’s self what virulent passion 
had thus swept, like a destroying pestilence, across 
it, and shown so little respect for this provincial 
bureaucrat. 

Nivard was regarded in Yillotte as a very ill- 
natured person, who had a store of scandalous his- 
tories on hand, and whose tongue, in short, was 
very much to be dreaded. His conversation was 
personal and gossiping, and his jests as venomous 
as if his vitiated blood had communicated a tinge 
of its own disorder even to his mind. 

As soon as he was installed before a glass of 
the wine he liked so much, he began to talk, ad- 
dressing himself ostensibly to Madame de Cou- 
laines, whom he interrogated as to the improve- 
ments in Paris. 

That lady, always loquacious, was by no means 
unwilling on this occasion to dazzle her aunt and 
her cousins by an account of the pleasures of the 
capital, and of her own distinguished position 
there. With the heedlessness of a linnet she 
touched upon the most risky subjects — the ac- 
tresses of the day, the last new play, a recent 
Parisian scandal — and one thing after another 
shocked Mademoiselle Lenette more than they 
astonished her. The pious old maid shook her 
head, and regarded this chatter as singularly out 
of place. Hyacinthe colored at each light word. 
As to Nivard, all the time he was talking to Ma- 
dame de Coulaines he never took his eyes from 


30 the house of the two barbels. 


Mademoiselle Laurence, who sat with her elbow , 
on the table, listening to the conversation with a 
most disdainful air. 

The small, keen eyes of the chief of bureau 
seemed to dwell with pleasure upon this pretty 
creature, whose fair complexion, expressive feat- 
ures, and classically-moulded profile, were brought 
out in the soft light of the lamp. This scrutiny 
of Nivard’s was so prolonged and undisguised 
that finally Germain became annoyed, and, emerg- 
ing from his corner, he in his turn examined his j 
cousin with unwilling and distrustful admiration. 

The uncivilized huntsman was scandalized and 
dismayed by the elegance of his dainty relative. 

His curious eyes studied timidly but eagerly each 
detail in the toilet of the young girl — a toilet 
which seemed to him extravagant and luxurious 
to the very last degree : the small, bronze slippers, 
cut so low that they allowed a delicate blue stock- 
ing, embroidered with black, to be seen ; the 
rounded bust, where a cluster of violets, purchased 
at the station in Paris, were shedding their last, 
faint sweetness ; the slender throat, surrounded 
by a broad white collar ; the black hair, exquisite- 
ly dressed, lightly crimped over the brow, and 
falling in soft curls at the back, and fastened by 
a scarlet ribbon — all these trifles told of a certain 
cultivation and worldliness which both puzzled 
and disturbed Germain. 

The deep-throated voice of the bell on the 


j THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 31 

I clock-tower, sounding the couvre-feu, interrupted 
I this perilous contemplation, and put an end to 
j Madame de Coulaines’s babble. The habits of the 
I house were inflexible — everybody went to bed 
j there and rose again by the belfry-clock. Nivard, 

I who was entirely au courant with the rules of the 
mansion, took leave of the company. The two 
brothers went to look at the shop doors and win- 
dows. Mademoiselle Lenette, having conducted 
her guests herself to their apartment, and lighted 
their candle, embraced them gravely, and bade 
them good-night. 

The next day Laurence de Coulaines, awakened 
by the shrill cries of the milkmen in the Rue du 
Bourg, had a moment of keen regret and amaze- 
ment at not flnding herself in her little room in 
the Rue du Bac. She did not at first know where 
she was. The coarse sheets, whose flax was sown 
and spun by Mademoiselle L4nette, recalled her to 
the reality. She rubbed her eyes, looked around 
her, and uttered a profound sigh at the sight of 
her small cabinet dimly lighted by the dawn. 
The walls, covered with a gray paper, were orna- 
mented their entire length by hooks, on which 
hung empty bags and portmanteaux, and by shelves 
where stood Aunt Lenette’s pots of sweetmeats 
and jars of dried fruits. In this unfurnished room 
the small iron bedstead,- the pine-wood table serv- 
ing for the toilet, and two straw chairs, formed so 
dreary, poor, and comfortless an interior, that 


32 the house of the two barbels. 


Laurence was ready to weep. With little temp- 
tation to linger in so sad a spot, the girl jumped 
from her bed, thrust her feet into her slippers, 
and ran to the window. 

As soon as she drew aside the curtains she was 
reassured by the scene which met her eyes. A 
soft, spring sunshine filled the street, touching 
with rosy fingers the carvings on the gray fa9ade, 
causing the pavement, which was still wet after 
the recent rain, to shine with a silvery lustre. 
Market-gardeners were bringing their early vege- 
tables into the town, and crying them with sing- 
song voices : ‘‘ Parsnips, carrots, and cabbages ! 
— parsnips, carrots, and cabbages ! ” Above her 
head the swallows flew gayly to and fro with 
their quick, sharp cries, grazing the cornice of the 
roof with their black wings. At the two ends of 
the street were hills covered with vineyards, their 
brown sides standing out against the blue sky. 

Hope, when one is but eighteen, rarely folds 
her wings, and now awoke to active life again in 
Mademoiselle de Coulaines’s heart cheered by this 
bright spring morning, and by the silvery sound 
of the church-bells ringing for early mass. She 
left the windows open, and, moving cautiously to 
avoid awakening her mother, who loved her morn- 
ing nap, began her toilet gayly enough. But, 
when she had poured into her wash-hand basin 
the contents of her pitcher and carafe^ she dis- 
covered that she had exhausted the water. Ac- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 33 


customed to inundate herself at her morning ab- 
lutions, Laurence shrugged her shoulders in dis- 
comfiture on seeing herself thus limited. “ What ! ” 
she murmured, “ do they economize in water, 
too ? — So much the worse for them ! ” she thought, 
and determined at once to set out in quest of an- 
other pitcherful from the kitchen. She enveloped 
herself in a peignoir^ gave a twist to the ripples 
of her abundant hair, which fell below her slender 
waist, and fastened the heavy knot to the top of 
her head. Then she carefully opened the door, 
slipped out into the corridor, and suddenly started 
hack with an exclamation of dismay. Retreating 
into her chamber, she closed the door. 

Germain was in the corridor ; he had started 
to go to the Bois de Rembercourt with his dogs, 
and had just emerged from his room, buttoned up 
in his hunting-coat and wearing long leather gait- 
ers. In the dark shadow of the corridor he caught 
a glimpse of his young cousin holding a water- 
pitcher in one hand, and with the other drawing 
the folds of her peignoir more closely over her 
bosom. The picture was but momentary. He 
had no sooner seen the fair face, illuminated by a 
pair of superb black eyes and surrounded by a 
mass of disheveled hair, than the vision vanished 
I behind the door, which was abruptly closed. 

I Lafrogne blushed to the roots of his hair, and, 
j very much embarrassed, felt a momentary long- 
i ing to retreat ; then the sense of the duties of 


34 the house of the two barbels. 


hospitality, and perhaps some evil spirit, impelled 
him to linger. He hesitated, and then, with no 
little awkwardness, went to the door of the cabi- 
net. 

‘‘ Cousin,” he said, in a voice that could hardly 
be heard. 

Profound silence on the other side of the door. 

“ Cousin,” he repeated, timidly rattling at the 
latch, do you want anything ? ” 

The door opened a little way, and a pretty face 
beautified by a radiant smile showed itself in the 
aperture. 

“I beg your pardon. Cousin Germain, but I 
wanted some water. Would you kindly tell the 
servant to bring some ? ” 

‘‘ I will go myself and get you some at the 
pump,” stammered Germain, somewhat disturbed ; 
and he walked away with a rapid step. Five 
minutes elapsed, and the vigorous huntsman re- 
appeared, bearing an enormous jug dripping with 
fresh water. 

Again he rattled the latch. 

‘‘ Here is a big jug of water, cousin.” 

“ Thanks ; please put it down by the door.” 

He obeyed and went away ; but, when he 
reached the first step on the staircase, he stopped 
and turned around, looking back curiously. 

The door opened half-way ; a white arm ap- 
peared — a pretty dimpled arm with a mole near 
the elbow, which lifted the jug while a laugh- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 35 

ing voice repeated, “ Thank you, cousin — thank 
you.” 

This was all ; but during the remainder of the 
day, under the drooping branches of the great 
beeches of Rembercourt, Germain fell into more 
th an one long reverie. Through the rustling leaves 
he saw once more the bewitching spectacle of that 
fair face and rippling hair — of those smiling eyes 
— of that white arm, with the small brown mole 
above the elbow. 


CHAPTER III. 

A FEW days later and the furniture of the 
Coulaines arrived. The ladies hastened to install 
themselves in the apartments engaged for them 
in the Rue des Saules. The arrangement of their 
new home absorbed their time and attention for 
more than a week, and gave infinite displeasure 
to Mademoiselle Lenette. The salon, crowded 
with all the stray relics of the former luxurious 
surroundings of the widow, especially scandalized 
the old lady, who could not understand how people 
who needed the substantials of life could have so 
much superfluous trash about them. The trifles 
scattered on the Hag^res, the faded blue rep of 
the sofas and chairs, the carpet spread upon the 
waxed floor, the jardinieres filled with natural 
flowers, disturbed the first principles of domestic 


36 the house of the two barbels. 


economy. There was a certain small lustre of 
modern make with rattling pendants, from the 
centre of which hung a crystal bell, against which 
Mademoiselle Lenette constantly knocked her head. 
This bell was peculiarly obnoxious to the nerves 
of the good lady, and aroused many sharp criti- 
cisms upon the two Parisians. 

In the beginning. Mademoiselle Lenette con- 
ceived it to be her duty to give practical advice 
and hints to her relatives, and even to utter a few 
words of gentle condemnation of their way of liv- 
ing. She intimated that, if they went to market 
themselves in the morning, instead of rising be- 
tween ten and eleven, they would find it much 
better in every way, on the score of both health 
and economy. 

She even permitted herself to criticise the long 
hours employed in practising upon the piano, in 
reading fashion-magazines and the journals, or in 
embroidering useless bands of worsted- work ; she 
wished to initiate them into the mystery of the 
semi-annual washes after the fashion in the prov- 
inces; and was quite willing to give them receipts 
for the manufacture of sweetmeats. But her ad- 
vice had been received coldly, and even sometimes 
with a gesture of impatience, and, as Aunt Lenette 
was not of an especially submissive temper, she 
determined, therefore, to abstain from showing 
her nieces an interest to which so little impor- 
tance was attached. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 37 

‘‘It is nothing to us, after all,” she said one 
evening to Hyacinthe. “One gets small thanks 
for good advice, and I have no fancy for meddling 
with the affairs of my neighbors. But things I 
see and hear at your cousins’ make my blood boil ; 
the girl is badly brought up, the mother has no 
sense, and their establishment is managed in a 
most reckless, foolish manner.” 

By degrees the intercourse between the two 
families became more and more infrequent ; they 
saw each other, in fact, only in ceremonious visits. 
The departure of Mademoiselle Lenette for her 
farm at Rembercourt caused the final breaking of 
ties which had never been very strong ; and, before 
the end of her first year in Villotte, Madame de 
Coulaines was completely awakened from the de- 
lusions in which she had indulged in regard to 
the kindly intentions of her wealthy country rela- 
tives, and bitterly regretted the unfortunate idea 
which had entered her head of burying herself in 
this little hole of a town. 

The mother and daughter were equally un- 
happy in this dismal spot, where there were no 
amusements, and where they had no congenial in- 
tercourse. The days seemed endless, and in spite 
of themselves they were forced to adopt the Cus- 
toms of Villotte, and retire at the nine-o’clock 
bell. 

Sometimes Madame de Coulaines, looking at 
her daughter’s pretty face, would sigh and say to 


38 the house of the two barbels. 


herself, ‘^If I could but marry Laurence, how 
quickly I would return to Paris ! ” And Laurence, 
touching her piano with languid white hands, 
thought in her turn that marriage alone could 
release her from the monotonous groove of her 
daily life in which she vegetated. There were 
occasional moments when she felt quite ready to 
throw herself at the head of the first man who 
would appear, provided he had money and the air 
of a gentleman. 

The worst of the whole was, that Mademoiselle 
Lenette’s predictions were realized; and that the 
two women, totally incapable of regulating their 
expenses, found it impossible to make both ends 
meet. They had already incurred many debts 
with tradesmen, and stern necessity impelled Ma- 
dame de Coulaines to accept a suggestion which 
she had rejected with disdain when offered by her 
aunt. She resigned herself to asking Delphin Ni- 
vard’s aid to obtain them some copying from the 
tax-office. Nivard did not wait to be asked twice, 
but exerted himself at once to serve the widow, 
sliowing most exceptional eagerness and zeal. 

Upon my word,” said Germain, have they 
bewitched the man ? What interest can he have 
in making himself so agreeable to them ? ” 

It was not long before Germain was enlight- 
ened upon this point. One day when Hyacinthe 
and himself were alone in the shop, the chief of 
bureau walked in and immediately led the con- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 39 

versation in the direction of the Coulaines ; after 
dwelling on their precarious position, he intimated 
that the widow ought to think of marrying her 
daughter. 

Suppose she did think of it,” replied Germain, 
roughly, ‘‘have you a son-in-law to propose to 
her?” 

“ Perhaps,” answered the bureaucrat, with a 
smile that wrinkled his whole face. 

“ Ah, ah ! ” grumbled Germain, unsympathet- 
ically ; “ who is the young idiot who would mar- 
ry a girl without a penny ? ” 

“ It is no young idiot,” replied Nivard, gravely, 
“but a man well on in years, who is settled in 
life.” 

“ What is his name ? ” 

“ Good Heavens, man ! can’t you understand ? 
It is I.” 

“ You — Nivard? ” 

Hyacinthe, in his astonishment, dropped a 
bottle on his ledger, and Germain uttered a shout 
of laughter which made the very windows rattle. 

“Yes — I — ” replied his friend, much annoyed. 
“ What is there so ridiculous in that ? ” 

“ Nivard ! ” exclaimed Germain, “ have you 
seen my cousin ? ” 

“ Of course I have.” 

“Do you know that she is just eighteen — ■ 
in the first blush of womanhood— that she is as 
pretty as a flower, and as frisky as a young colt ? ” 


40 the house of the two barbels. m 

‘‘Very well — what then ? ” _ . ■ | 

“What then ! Have you ever looked at your- 
self in the mirror ? ” " 

He grasped him sudddenly by the arm and 
whisked him in front of a glass, where Hivard, || 
much startled, suddenly saw reflected his wig, and -j 
eyelids without lashes, his pallid face and inflamed j 
nose. 

“ Examine yourself well,” continued Germain, 
brutally, “ and ask yourself if you are the sort of 
person for whom a girl like Laurence could ever 
care. Why, my dear fellow, the mere thought 
ought to make every hair in your wig stand up 
straight.” 

“Pshaw ! Germain,” stammered Nivard, bit- 
ing his thin lips and endeavoring to disengage 
himself from the muscular grasp of Lafrogne the 
younger, “ you need not get so much excited. I 
see that I need not rely on your aid, and that you 
refuse to help me.” 

“ I not only refuse to help you, but I intend to ^ 
hinder you as much as lies in my power — ^be sure 
of that. I will never lift a finger to promote such 
a senseless project ! ” 

The conversation threatened to become so 
angry that Hyacinthe thought it advisable to in- 1 
terfere. He therefore quietly remarked to his i 
brother that Madame de Coulaines alone had the 
right to decide the question asked by Delphin Ni- 
vard, and that she would have reason to reproach 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


41 


her relatives if they did not submit the proposal 
to her ; he finally succeeded in calming the chief 
of bureau by promising to call that very evening 
on his cousins, and bring their reply to him. 

The honest Hyacinthe executed his commis- 
sion conscientiously, but, at the first sound of Ni- 
vard’s name, Madame Coulaines uttered a little 
shriek of dismay. 

“ Is he laughing at me ? ” she exclaimed, “ and 
does he think that I would give my daughter to 
such a grotesque-looking buffoon ? ” 

As to Laurence, she laughed heartily, and re- 
plied with no little disdain that she felt no inspi- 
ration to enact the role of a sick-nurse. 

Delphin Nivard was keenly hurt by this re- 
fusal, which he had not anticipated. He took it 
into his head that Germain had caused his discom- 
fiture, and his wounded self-love filled his heart 
with anger, and inspired him with a vivid longing 
for revenge. He allowed nothing of this to be 
seen, however, believing with Monsieur de Talley- 
rand that vengeance is a dish that can be eaten 
cold ; but he swore to himself that he would snatch 
at the first occasion to repay the Lafrognes for 
the bitterness of his humiliation. 

As to Mademoiselle Lunette, when she heard of 
Nivard’s matrimonial aspirations, she shrugged 
her shoulders. “ He is mad,” she said — quite 
mad — to think of marrying, with his face and 
figure ! But men never think of such things. 


42 the house of the two barbels. 


and Laurence did well to put him down at once 
Avith his senseless cackle. I am glad to see that 
the little girl has sense enough not to give herself 
to. the first infatuated fool who asks to marry 
her ; and one of these days, when our grapes are 
all gathered, I will look about for some honest 
fellow who Avould be Avilling to marry her.” 

Unfortunately, Aunt Lenette was fated never 
to see her vines blossom again. Toward Midlent 
she caught cold during a long service at church, 
and was obliged to take to her bed ; she was sev- 
enty-four years old, and at that age inflammation 
of the lungs is no trifling affaii*. Two days later 
she was dying, and the cure of Notre-Dame was 
hastily sent for to administer the last sacraments. 

When she was alone again with her nephews 
after the departure of the priest, “ My children,” 
she said, “ it is all over ; I am going to leave you.” 

The two Barbels were overwhelmed ; accus- 
tomed to seeing their aunt alert, erect, and robust, 
the possibility that their household could be broken 
up had never occurred to them, and it was almost 
impossible for them now to grasp the appalling 
fact. 

“ It cannot be,” murmured Hyacinthe, with a 
sob ; “ God will never be so cruel as to take you 
away from us ! He will let you remain ; what 
would become of us without you ? ” 

“ It is hard to depart when we are so happy — 
we three together,” said his aunt. “You have 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 43 

been unaccustomed to living alone or taking care of 
yourselves, my poor boys ! — Hyacinthe, you will 
find the keys of the wardrobes in my desk — all 
the linen is arranged in dozens. Who will now 
take care of all that ? and what a pity it is that I 
cannot live until the next wash ! — Germain, my 
son, do not forget that our vines are well trimmed 
early in April. Alas ! I say ‘ our vines,’ as if I 
were not going to quit all earthly things.” 

The stifled sobs of the two brothers at these 
words burst all bounds. 

“Calm yourselves,” continued Mademoiselle 
Lunette, more feebly. “ Let me look at you once 
more, and then kiss me.” 

They both kissed her. The effort she had 
made in talking exhausted her, and she gasped 
for breath. At the end of another half-hour of 
silence, she lifted her head and asked if her nieces 
had been summoned. 

“Yes, my dear aunt,” Germain replied, “and 
they were here three times yesterday ; but I would 
not let them come up, for fear of fatiguing you.” 

“ Send for them,” whispered Aunt Lenette, 
faintly ; “ they are your only relatives — ^be good 
to them. I wish to say good-by to them.” 

Her voice died away. Hyacinthe sent for Ma- 
dame de Coulaines and her daughter, but before 
they reached the house the angel of death, whose 
silent flight is more rapid than human steps, had 
entered the Maison Lafrogne and touched the lips 


44 the house of the two barbels. 


and eyes of Aunt Lenette with his soft, feathery 
wings. When the two nieces ascended the stairs, 
Mademoiselle Lenette had ceased to live. The sight 
was most melancholy : Catherine had just closed 
the dead woman’s eyes, and had lighted two can- 
dles at the head of the bed ; Hyacinthe was bur- 
ied in an arm-chair ; Germain, with his lips com- 
pressed, was wandering like a soul in torment up 
and down the ancient room where Mademoiselle 
Lenette had passed so large a portion of her life. 

The dress she had laid aside two days before 
still hung over a chair, preserving in its folds 
something of the personality of the woman who 
was no more. Her spectacle-case and the old 
prayer-book, bound in brown, were still on the 
chimney-piece, where she had laid them on her 
return from church ; but Aunt Lenette would never 
again turn those time-yellowed leaves, she would 
never again button her erect form in that woolen 
dress she had so often worn. All that happy 
daily life was over forever. While Madame de 
Coulaines and Laurence, kneeling at the side of the 
bed, murmured prayers for her who was gone and 
whom they had never loved, Hyacinthe mourned 
aloud : 

“She is gone ! We shall see her no more ! 
If she could have had a long sickness — but no ; 
she is dead in two days — struck down all at once ! 
Ah ! it is too hard ! ” 

At twilight the bells of Notre-Dame rang out 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 45 

for the dead. All night the two Barbels watched 
by the side of the body ; and the next day at 
noon Aunt Lenette was laid at rest between her 
sister and her father in the cemetery of Sainte-Mar- 
J guerite, in the shade of green trees and tall, wav- 
i ing grass, in a sheltered spot, which commanded 
a view of the vineyard on the hill-side, now green- 
ing in the warm spring sunshine, and of the clus- 
tering houses in Villotte. 


I CHAPTER IV. 

For the first month after the death of Made- 
moiselle Lenette, the two brothers seemed too 
stunned to realize the heaviness of the loss they 
had suffered. They lived in a mechanical sort of 
way, without paying any heed to what was going 
on within the house or without. They abandoned 
all housekeeping cares to Catherine, refused to see 
any visitors, took their seats at the table without 
any appetite, and in fact cared little for anything. 

1 Hyacinthe wandered here and there, like a body 
that has lost its soul. Germain had lost all his 
love for the chase, and never put his foot in the 
woods. Sometimes, at early dawn, the two broth- 
ers stole cautiously out of the house, quite unseen 
by each other, and reached the cemetery by un- 
frequented routes, where they were astonished to 
meet by the side of their aunt’s grave. They 


46 the house of THE TWO BARBELS. 


lingered there for hours, exchanging scarcely three 
words, busy in setting out flowers and vines. April 
showers had opened the soil, and they had only to 
set out the plants the old lady was most fond of. 
An attack of paralysis, depriving them suddenly 
of the use of their eyes and their limbs, could not 
have made them more helpless than the sudden 
death of Mademoiselle Lenette. 

Habituated to entire reliance on their aunt in 
all household matters, they knew nothing of the 
management and details of housekeeping ; and the 
smallest domestic trifles assumed to them the im- 
portance of an affair of state. 

Who was to order their dinners and replenish 
their wardi’obes ? At the very thought, they looked 
at each other in consternation, and finally yielded 
everything to Catherine. 

They puzzled their brains over the bunch 
of keys which Mademoiselle Lenette wielded with 
such dexterity. Within those deep wardrobes, 
where their aunt had arranged the linen in a 
methodical order of which she had carried away 
the secret, the two poor men failed to find the 
article of which they were in search. They spent 
hours in looking for a pocket-handkerchief ; then, 
wearied out after having disordered every shelf, 
they seated themselves in utter discouragement 
opposite the piles of tumbled linen, and murmured, 
in heart-breaking tones, “ Ah, if aunt were only 
here ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 47 

One evening in May, after a day wasted in this 
fashion, the supper was more detestable than usual. 
Catherine had given her masters two dishes which 
they particularly disliked — a tongue brais^e and 
some ceufs d Voseille. As the crowning touch, the 
salad, too, was badly dressed and absolutely un- 
eatable. The two brothers, seated before their 
untouched plates, were silent, fatigued, and out 
of temper, when Germain, laying down his fork 
with noisy abruptness, murmured these words, 
which seemed to be the conclusion of a long 
soliloquy : “ No, no ! this state of things must 
come to an end ! ” 

‘‘ What is it that must come to an end ? ” asked 
Hyacinthe, aroused in his turn from profound 
meditation by his brother’s exclamation. 

“ What ! Why, the life we lead, of course. 
We are young, in good health, and well-to-do, 
and yet we live in more wretched discomfort than 
the poorest silk- weaver in the Rue de Veel.” 

“ That is true ; but we are the victims of cir- 
cumstances, and we can do no otherwise. Ah ! 
if poor Aunt Lenette were only here ! ” 

“ Yes, if she were here, it would be all right ; 
but, since the dear woman is gone, we cannot spend 
the rest of our days in lamenting her, while the 
house is all at loose ends. We are no longer chil- 
dren, Lafrogne, and we must take some decided 
step in this emergency.” 

“ What step, Germain ? ” 


48 the house of the two barbels. 

Well, then, look here,” answered the younger 
brother, folding his napkin leisurely. “I know 
that you will he horrified at what I am going to 
say, and I am well aware that my proposition has 
a very weak side to it ; hut, of two evils, it is ad- 
visable to choose the least. Catherine is growing 
old; it is impossible for her to do everything, 
and — in short, we ought to have a woman at the 
head of the house.” 

“ Hum ! ” replied Hyacinthe, dipping a crust 
into his wine — the pure juice of the grape. “ It 
is a great risk to run. If we should take a house- 
keeper, ten to one she would rob us ; and if she 
were honest, she would tyrannize over us. That 
would he jumping from the frying-pan into the 
fire ! ” 

“ Who was speaking of mercenary services ? ” 
said Germain — “ not I ! !N’o ; we require a woman 
to watch over our affairs with a devotion that one 
does not find in a domestic ; and, consequently, it 
is perfectly clear that one of us must marry.” 

“ Oh ! oh ! oh ! ” cried Hyacinthe, in three 
different tones. “ What are you thinking of ? At 
our ages, with our habits, would you introduce a 
stranger under our roof, whose customs and tastes 
are foreign to our own, who will not like our way 
of living, and who, ten to one, will take a dislike 
to whichever of us is her brother-in-law ? It is a 
most hazardous experiment.” 

“ It is one, nevertheless, which must be made,” 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 49 

answered Germain, obstinately. ‘‘And if our 
poor aunt could speak, I feel certain that she 
would offer the same advice.” 

“Yes, if we could only find a second Aunt 
Lenette,” murmured Hyacinthe, thoughtfully. 

“ A little younger, I think,” objected Germain. 

“ The choice is not an easy one,” resumed the 
elder Barbel. “ Where on earth are we to look 
for a woman who will interest herself in our 
affairs, and be willing to accommodate herself to 
our ways ? ” 

“Who knows? We certainly have not very 
far to go, for it seems to me that we have her 
under our hand.” 

“ Whom can you mean ? ” 

“ Our cousin De Coulaines.” 

“ The mother or the daughter ? ” asked Hya- 
cinthe, ingenuously. 

“ The mother is perhaps a little too mature,” 
answered Germain, with a light grimace. “ No ; 
I am thinking of the daughter, of course.” 

“ Laurence ! ” exclaimed Hyacinthe, with up- 
lifted hands. “She cannot be more than nine- 
teen ! ” 

“ So much the better ! She has had no time 
to fall into any fixed habits, and we can mould 
her to our taste.” 

“ But the difference of age ! Do you not re- 
member what you said to Nivard ? ” 

“Nivard is used up and worn out ! We are 
4 


50 the house of the two barbels. 


young and hearty in comparison. And remember 
that, if we decide to marry, it is the height of pru- 
dence to take a wife from among our relatives — 
then, you see, our fortune will not go out of the 
family ; and, besides, Laurence is poor, and she 
will thus be bound to us by double ties — those of 
blood and gratitude. In selecting a stranger we 
should expose ourselves to the same risks, without 
any corresponding advantages.” 

Germain preached so well that he ended by 
convincing Hyacinthe. The brothers agreed that 
Mademoiselle de Coulaines was altogether the 
best person. 

‘‘ She is certainly too young, though,” persisted 
Hyacinthe, sipping his Avine. “ But, never mind ! 
Here’s to her health ! ” 

“ That is settled, then,” exclaimed Germain, 
shaking his brother’s hand heartily. “ 'Now, the 
only point that remains undecided is which of us 
shall marry her.” 

“ That is absurd ! ” answered Hyacinthe. 
“You are the one, 'of course. You are the 
younger ; and, between ourselves, I have more 
than once fancied that you were by no means in- 
different to the young person in question.” 

“ Pshaw ! ” answered the other. “ I liked to 
look at her ; but she would please me quite as 
much as a sister-in-law as a wife. Besides, you 
are the eldest, and it is you who should be the 
head of the family.” 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 51 

“Thanks for the honor,” replied Hyacintlie, 
rising to his feet in his eagerness. “ I yield all 
my rights of seniority. I am timid, awkward, 
and middle-aged. I should be but a sorry object 
in the eyes of a pretty woman ! ” 

“ Nonsense ! You are kind and gentle, agree- 
able and accommodating — all of which qualities 
are essential in matrimony ; while I, on the con- 
trary, am rough and unamiable, and with my 
boorish manners — those*^f a huntsman — I am like 
an untrained cub. No, no ! You are the one 
who will go before the mayor.” 

“ But, Germain,” protested the unhappy Hy- 
acinthe, in an entreating tone, “ I do not like 
women. I am really afraid of them ! ” 

“ And with me it is just the reverse. They 
are afraid of me ! ” 

“ Come, now, my boy, be serious. Only just 
now you insisted that our house and home were 
going to rack and ruin — that one of us must 
marry. I agreed with you — supposing, of course, 
that you would be the one to take the step.” 

“I? I had, on the contrary, the idea that 
yours was the duty — ” 

“ Not so. I am too old ! ” 

“ And I too ill-tempered.” 

The brothers sat for a time in silence, with 
their eyes cast down, buried in perplexed thought. 
Then looking up, and catching each other’s eyes, 
they laughed in a certain melancholy way. 


52 the house of the two barbels. 


“ Nevertheless, we must come to a decision,” 
resumed Hyacinthe. 

“ Very well ! we can draw lots,” replied his 
brother, “ for in this way we may go on for- 
ever ! ” 

He took his memorandum-book and tore out 
two leaves, upon one of which he wrote Hya- 
cinthe’s name, and on the other his own, and then, 
folding them precisely alike, he threw them both 
into his hat. 

‘‘ Choose ! ” he cried. “ The first name opened 
will be the man.” 

One moment,” said Hyacinthe, who, in evi- 
dent terror, watched his brother’s preparations ; 
“ let us do this more formally, and then the one 
on whom falls the lot cannot accuse the other of 
any trickery.” 

He called Catherine from the window, and, 
when she appeared, he said : 

“ My good girl, you see this hat. Very well ; 
within it are two notes : shut your eyes, and take 
out one.” 

Catherine looked first at one of the Barbels 
and then at the other, and asked herself if the 
brothers had not gone mad. Finally, in obe- 
dience to an imperative gesture from Germain, she 
turned up her sleeves, and plunged her hand into 
the hat. 

Hyacinthe, with his eyes riveted on Catherine, 
followed her movements with an ardent hope that 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 53 


it would not be his name that would appear. A 
cold shiver passed up and down his spine. 

“ Here is the paper, sir,” said the cook, taking 
one of the papers from the hat, and holding it 
toward the two brothers. 

“ Give it to my brother Hyacinthe,” cried Ger- 
main, eagerly, “ and be off with you ! ” 

He good-naturedly pushed her out of the room, 
and, before she had time to know where she was, 
he had shut the door in her face. Hyacinthe in 
the mean time unfolded the paper with trembling 
fingers. The eldest Lafrogne went to the window 
to see better, and his long, simple profile was 
thrown in relief against the white curtains. 

‘‘Well?” said the other, impatiently. 

“ It is ‘ Germain^ ” answered Hyacinthe, with 
a sigh of relief. He handed the paper to his broth- 
er, who read it, and crumpled it in his hand. 

“ I might have known it,” he grumbled. 

“ Come,” said Hyacinthe, in a coaxing, affec- 
tionate tone, “take courage, my dear fellow. 
Providence does all things well. And now it is 
for me to go to sound our cousin De Coulaines.” 

“ There is no immediate hurry,” replied Ger- 
main, sulkily. 

“I do not agree with you ; it is best that we 
should know this very day what we have to ex- 
pect. You do not repent already, I trust ? ” 

“ I have given my word,” murmured Germain, 
dreamily. 


54 the house of the two barbels. 


Hyacinthe took his hat, and went at once to 
call on Madame de Coulaines. 

Laurence had that moment gone to her cham- 
ber, and the widow was alone in her dining-room. 
Hyacinthe explained to her as best he could the 
varied annoyances they had suffered since the 
death of Aunt Lenette, and he asked her with 
much ceremony to give her daughter’s hand to his 
younger brother. 

Madame de Coulaines could hardly believe her 
ears. After the more than chilling manner in 
which she had been treated by the Lafrognes this 
astonishing step affected her like a transformation- 
scene in a fairy spectacle. She prudently concealed 
her joy, however, and replied loftily that she was 
much honored by her cousin’s proposition ; that 
marriage was a very serious matter, and that she 
must consult her daughter before she could give 
any definite reply. In short, she asked for the 
night for refiection, and promised to send him a 
reply in the morning. 

As soon as Hyacinthe had gone, she hurried to 
her daughter’s room. She found her seated in a 
low chair near the open window, reading a novel 
by the last rays of the setting sun which came 
through the branches of the trees in the garden 
opposite. As the door opened she lifted her head 
and was surprised at her mother’s air of excite- 
ment. 

Madame de Coulaines gayly snatched the book 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 55 

from her hands, kissed her on her forehead, and, 
sitting down at her side, said : 

‘‘ Listen to me, Laurence ; I have some news 
for you.” 

“ What is it ? ” murmured Laurence ; “ you 
are quite radiant.” 

“ Some one has just been here, some one who 
has made a proposal of marriage — a most magnifi- 
cent offer, I assure you, and most unexpected. 
Guess ! ” 

“ The son of a prince, of course,” said Laurence, 
jestingly, whose eyes had an incredulous expres- 
sion. 

‘‘ Not the son of a prince, hut your cousin 
Germain Lafrogne.” 

Not quite the same thing ! ” answered the 
girl, with a disdainful curl of her lip. 

You had best not complain. A man with an 
income of twenty-five thousand francs, to say 
nothing of the fortune which will eventually come 
to him from his brother.” 

“ A bear,” answered Laurence, ‘‘ an absolute 
bear — a savage who is twenty years older than 
1 .” 

“ You talk like the merest child ! If you had 
a little more experience you would know that men 
of that age and of the style of Germain are the 
easiest to manage, and make the very best hus- 
bands. Besides, he is by no means ill-looking. 
He has fine eyes and superb teeth ; he is well 


56 the house of the two barbels. 


made, and I am certain that the air of the forest 
preserves people, for he does not look his age. 
You must lay aside all sentiment, little girl. You 
know that we are much embarrassed, and that it 
is impossible for us to make both ends meet. I 
had a scene yesterday with the grocer, who actu- 
ally threatened me with an execution. Be rea- 
sonable, my child, and do not refuse the only suit- 
able match which has been offered to you, for 
later you will be ready to eat your fingers for hav- 
ing done so.” 

Laurence, with her chin resting on one hand, 
while the other played a tune on the window- 
glass, stood without uttering a word. 

“Hyacinthe will be here to-morrow,” con- 
tinued the widow ; “ what shall I tell him ? ” 

“ I am well aware that I have no right to be 
fastidious,” said the girl, at last, shrugging her 
shoulders nervously ; “ tell him, therefore, that I 
shall do precisely as you think best.” 

Her mother left the room. Laurence turned 
again toward the window, and, with her hands 
buried in the masses of her dark hair, with her 
eyes fixed on the trees in the garden, abandoned 
herself to melancholy thoughts. 

The sun had set, but a warm glow flooded the 
sky on the right. Against this ruddy light, the 
trees, the sharply-pointed roofs, and the slender 
steeple of a church-tower, stood out in black re- 
lief. Laurence, who instinctively loved bright col- 


3 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 57 

j ■ 

i ors, strong perfumes, and loud music, and who gen- 
\ erally took great pleasure in watching the chang- 
ing lights of the setting sun, this evening sighed 
i at the thought of the contrast between this illu- 
mination and the darkness within her soul which 
had been caused by Germain’s singular step. 

She had certainly determined more than once 
to marry, and to marry as soon as possible ; but, 
although she had no good reason to look forward 
to a brilliant marriage, she had, at all events, 
dreamed of a very different husband from her 
cousin Lafrogne. Germain, under his mature and 
rough aspect, in no way realized the ideal she had 
conceived. And yet she accepted the facts which 
her mother laid before her, and realized that she 
was entirely right in advising her not to disdain 
so advantageous an offer, although it was not en- 
ticing. It was a great thing to emerge from the 
narrow and penurious existence in which it was 
necessary to count every farthing, to wear faded 
dresses and mended gloves, and to listen in sub- 
missive silence to the claims of angry tradespeople 
imbittered by innumerable unpaid bills. 

At all events, when she was Madame Lafrogne, 
she would be rich, and the mistress of an estab- 
lishment where nothing was lacking. She could 
indulge in all the luxury she adored, in all the 
superfluity which with her was almost a necessity. 

At Laurence’s age, when the heart has not 
yet spoken, life is seen only on the surface ; 


58 the house of the two barbels. 


there is no knowledge of the pain and sorrow, the 
shame and mortification, hidden underneath. Con- 
sequently, resolutions are easily taken, before 
which, at a later hour, one is amazed that one did 
not shrink in terror and dismay. This is the ex- 
planation of the strange marriages which are made 
by so many young girls not only with resignation, 
but almost with a smile upon their lips. They 
would be odious were it not that they are the re- 
sult more of ignorance and heedlessness than of 
calculation and ambition. 

When Laurence awoke from her reverie, the 
light of the setting sun had faded ; the hill, the 
houses, and the trees, were alike one black cloud, 
a confused mass ; and in the sky, now a pale-green, 
like aqua-marine, one solitary star trembled on 
the verge of the horizon. The young girl shook 
her head sadly, as if she were bidding a final adieu 
to the ideal lover of whom she had thought ever 
since she left her boarding-school. It was all 
over : she had accepted her fate ; she had decided 
to call herself Madame Lafrogne. 

The next day, at noon, Hyacinthe, having re- 
ceived a note from Madame de Coulaines, assisted 
Germain to make his toilette de c'eremonie. The 
bold huntsman trimmed his flowing locks and his 
beard ; he wore a stiff silk hat, which gave him 
the headache ; his coat was too tight, and his pat- 
ent-leather boots tortured his feet. 

“ You see,” he said to Hyacinthe, making fu- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 59 


:i tile efforts to introduce his hands into a pair of 
; kid gloves, “all these ceremonies are not my 
style.” 

I Hyacinthe encouraged him as best he could 
! when he escorted him to the Rue des Saules, where 
■ they found their relatives waiting for them in the 
; salon, which was decorated for the occasion with 
I the luxury of fresh flowers. After a few minutes, 
Madame de Coulaines made a sign to Hyacinthe, 
j and took him into the next room, in order to leave 
i the new suitor to make his own advances to her 
I daughter, without the drawback of spectators, 
j Laurence, seated on the piano-stool, was ner- 
I vously twisting a rose in her Angers. Germain, 

i erect in his arm-chair, was more and more con- 
scious of the discomfort of his best coat. 

[' “ It is very warm here,” he said, suddenly, in 

Ij a choked voice. 

“A storm is coming up,” answered Laurence, 
without lifting her eyes. “ Shall I open the win- 
dow, cousin?” 

“ By no means,” he cried, eagerly. It seemed 
to him that, if the window were opened, it would 
be still more difficult for him to find words of 
explanation. And at last, without the slightest 
introduction, like a man throwing himself into the 
; water — “Cousin Laurence,” he said, “has your 
mother told you of my wishes ? ” 

, She colored, and raised her large, white lids, 
I and fixed her superb black eyes on Germain, who 


60 the house of the two barbels. 


was completely dazzled by them. “Yes, she has 
told me,” she said, slowly. 

“Well, then, answer me frankly, as between 
honest people. Will you be my wife ? I am not 
much of a talker, and I am not good at long 
speeches ; but I wish to tell you thal; you will 
make me very happy by accepting my hand, and 
I will do my best to prevent you from ever regret- 
ting that you have done so. What do you say ? ” 
The rose lightly trembled in the girl’s hand. 

She murmured, in a voice that was almost in- 
audible, “ Yes, Cousin Germain.” 

He rose and went to her side. 

“ Thanks,” he said, in a full, rich voice, and at 
the same time, with scanty ceremony, taking pos- 
session of the slender fingers still holding the 
half-faded rose, he placed it triumphantly in 
his button-hole as he added, “ I swear to you, on 
the word of an honest man, that I will do all in 
my power to make you happy ! ” 

The bans were published with all possible 
expedition, and three weeks later the marriage 
took place at Notre-Dame. As the death of Ma- 
demoiselle Lenette was so recent there were no 
wedding festivities. The whole town, however, in 
great astonishment at this most unexpected turn 
of affairs, filled the church to overflowing. Com- 
ing out the bride and groom passed through a 
curious crowd, among whom stood Delphin Ni- 
vard. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 61 


When the bride, gathering np her long, rus- 
tling train of white satin, had stepped lightly into 
the first carriage, the bureaucrat stood for a good 
two minutes looking after the horses trotting 
rapidly in the direction of the Rue du Bourg. 
A most unpleasant smile curled his thin lips, and 
as he rubbed his hands he said to himself : “ Take 
care, good man ! Do not balk me of my revenge 
I by breaking the necks of your precious burden, 
f The fair bride will lead- the two Barbels a pretty 
life ! And when she places them on the gridiron, 
1 may I be there to stir the fire and see them broil ! ” 


CHAPTER V. 

The newly-married couple passed their honey- 
moon at the farm at Rembercourt. A short dis- 
tance from the farm-buildings stood a small house 
built by Lafrogne the father, which served as a 
pied-d-terre to the family during the fruit-season, 

! where the bride installed herself as best she might. 
These days were very sweet to Germain, who was 
by no means Uas^ ; he was thrilled with constant 
wonder and ever-increasing joy as he realized his 
; happiness in having won so fair a creature. He 

i snatched at all the bliss of matrimony with the 

\ eagerness of a poor devil who has lived for a long 
time on wild fruit gathered along the road-side. 


62 the house of the two barbels. 


and who is offered for the first time velvety and 
exquisite peaches. 

It was the season of hay -making, and the de- 
licious smell of the new-mown grass, which filled 
the air in the morning and evening, intoxicated 
Germain still more. He adored Laurence, and 
she, who was a thorough woman, profited by this 
to establish, little by little, her dominion over the 
heart and mind of her husband. 

The first use she made of her power was to 
fill the old house in the Rue du Bourg with work- 
people, and entirely alter its interior arrangements. 
Hyacinthe hazarded a few timid objections ; but 
he, as well as Germain, was conquered by the 
pretty, coaxing ways of his sister-in-law. The 
Lafrogne mansion was remodeled, painted and 
decorated, and new parquet floors were laid dur- 
ing the summer and autumn which followed the 
marriage. Not a vestige of the old furniture was 
to be seen, except some Flanders tapestry and 
some articles in the “ green-room.” Hyacinthe 
sighed softly, while Catherine exclaimed aloud at 
the sacrilege ; but the rejuvenation of the house 
of the two Barbels went on just the same. Each 
afternoon Laurence drove in from Rembercourt 
to superintend the progress of the metamorphosis. 
She came in a low basket-wagon, drawn by two 
spirited Corsican ponies, which Germain had pur- 
chased a few weeks after the marriage, and which 
she drove herself. When the pony-carriage ap- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 63 

:l peared in the Rue des Cloueres, or in the Rue du 
! Bourg, people ran to the window to see young 
Madame Lafrogne, with her hair lightly waved, 
' and a veil loosely tied around a gray-felt hat, 
i holding the white reins in her many-huttoned 
' buckskin gloves. 

! “That little woman is coming on bravely,” 
I said one. “ She makes the Lafrogne gold-pieces 
I fly,” said another. “ Ah, if Mademoiselle Lenette 
were only here ! ” 

But Aunt Lenette slept in a spot where ears 
j heard not,, where eyes saw not ; and, therefore, 
i with every respect for her memory, the changes 
j and repairs went on all the same. 

I When the carpenters and painters had finished 
1 their work, the question of furnishing arose. 

! Portieres were hung at all the doors, and carpets 
ft laid on every floor ; even the stairs were covered. 
Madame Lafrogne had unearthed in some half- 
forgotten shop in the upper town some old furni- 
ture covered with antique tapestry, which she 
placed in the salon. From Paris she ordered 
Dutch lustres, Japanese lamps, and rare faiences. 
The boudoir was hung with poppy-colored satin, 
to bring out Laurence’s fair skin and black hair. 
Germain had a smoking-room carpeted with India 
matting and embellished with Oriental divans, 

: but he dared not smoke within it. There was 
' not a corner that was not filled with natural 
, flowers, there was not a square foot on the wall 


64 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


where the eye was not amused by some price- 
less trifle — candelabra, of bronze or polished brass, 
shining in the light, and faiences of the most 
brilliant, striking colors. 

The wonders of the house of the two Barbels 
were the absorbing topic of conversation through- 
out Yillotte. Innumerable were the pretexts in- 
vented to penetrate within its walls and inspect 
the results of Madame Lafrogne’s caprices, and 
significant indeed were the glances exchanged be- 
tween neighbors. Sarcastic were the smiles, piti- 
ful were the shakes of the head, as comments were 
made of not the most charitable nature. 

“ That must have cost a pretty sum of money,” 
said the visitors, after the door closed behind 
them. ‘‘ The Barbels have been compelled to 
loosen their purse-strings ! A man is never too 
old to be foolish,” added another, sententiously. 

“What would you have?” said Delphin Ni- 
vard, in a tone of hypocritical compassion, while 
a malignant joy illuminated his small, green eyes, 
sparkling under their half-closed lids — those lids 
so guiltless of lashes. 

A chambermaid had been added to old Cath- 
erine, and Hyacinthe himself was disturbed in the 
routine of his daily habits. He was ousted from 
the two rooms he had occupied under the ware- 
house, and was bastiled, with or without his con- 
sent — Laurence paid little heed to that — in the 
“ green-room,” which was furnished anew. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 65 

But, if Laurence had succeeded in eifecting a 
radical transformation in the interior of the house, 
she had made a signal failure in her attempts at 
changing the habits and tastes of the two broth- 
ers. When in the autumn the two Barbels estab- 
lished themselves in the Rue du Bourg, they at 
once resumed their former way of living. Hya- 
cinthe continued to spend the days in keeping his 
books and the evenings in reading. Germain di- 
vided his time between his business at the drug- 
shop and the pleasures of the chase ; he returned 
home in time for supper, hungry and tired — he ate 
like an ogre, and went off to bed at nine o’clock. 

By degrees the house became just what it had 
been previously — silent, solitary, and closed to 
all visitors. A cold and penetrating somnolency 
seemed to pervade it and to fall from the roof 
— a heavy weight on the sumptuous apartments. 
Germain refused, in the most peremptory manner, 
to accompany his wife when she returned her 
wedding-visits : society frightened him, and, with 
the exception of Delphin Nivard, who occasion- 
ally took a seat in Hyacinthe’s chimney-corner, 
no stranger was received at the Lafrognes’. Ma- 
dame de Coulaines, to whom Villotte had always 
been an exile, had not long lingered there after 
her daughter’s maniage. As soon as she had 
seen Laurence well established, she had shaken 
off the weight of years, regained her youth, and 
as now her modest income of three thousand 
5 


66 the house of the two barbels. 


francs sufficed for her individual needs, she hast- 
ened back to Paris to resume there all the habits 
and acquaintances of yore. 

At the beginning of winter, Laurence was 
alone — alone to all intents and purposes, in that 
large, luxurious home. When she had visited the 
mansion, of which she was the sovereign, from 
cellar to attic, when she had looked at herself in 
all the mirrors, and had sat in each one of the 
cushioned arm-chairs, she began to find her gilded 
life a trifle monotonous. 

JEnnui, as gray, subtile, and penetrating, as an 
October mist, reached her, even through the heavy 
portieres and silken curtains of her rooms. It 
wrapped her all about during the long days, unoc- 
cupied hours, and the still longer evenings. She 
understood then the cruel truth of that rude song 
of the people that she had heard the villagers 
singing at Rembercourt — an old song, well known 
in Lorraine : 

“ What care I for riches, 

If riches bring no joy to me ! 

The day I die I take with me 
Naught but a winding-sheet and a shirt. 

Rich I have lived and poor I die. 

Hurrah for death ! hurrah I ” 

Of what use were all the elegant toilets which 
she could not display ? At Villotte no one prom- 
enaded ; the ladies there had no other recreation 


I THE HOUSE 'of THE TWO BARBELS. 67 

than going to church and to market. Now, Lau- 
rence left this last amusement to Catherine ; and, 
as to church, as her piety was somewhat luke- 
warm, she contented herself with going on Sun- 
i days to low mass at eleven. As my readers will 
I see, therefore, she rarely went out, and she was 
> rapidly becoming wearied to death. 

Even when the two Barbels were with her, 
the society of their two unexpansive, reserved na- 
tures had for her nothing exhilarating in it. Their 
domestic tastes and old-fashioned ideas — their 
commonplace conversation, always upon past days 
wherein Mademoiselle Lenette’s name was of fre- 
: quent occurrence — neither amused nor interested 
I her, but rendered her very taciturn. Sometimes 
it seemed to Laurence that her brain was shrink- 
i ing, that her youth was fading, in the constant 
I companionship of these two men, who were so 
much older than their years, and she examined 
herself in her mirror with absolute terror, believ- 
ing that she should find a deep wrinkle on her 
I brow, or white threads among her black hair, 
j She had fits of unaccountable depression, end- 
( ing in passionate floods of tears, of which she 
i was heartily ashamed, and which she did her best 
to conceal. 

The two brothers, with small experience in 
anything relating to women, knew not what 
, course to adopt to lighten her melancholy. Ger- 

I main, who had indulged each caprice and fancy 

( 

i 

I - 


68 the house of the two bakbels. 


of his wife’s, was persuaded that he had fulfilled 
every duty toward her, and was, moreover, keep- 
ing to the letter the promise that he had made — 
to make her happy. She had beautiful toilets — a 
luxurious home. What could she wish more, and 
why on earth could she not be content ? 

Besides, just at this time the two Barbels were 
absorbed in an occupation which left them little 
time to occupy themselves with the meaningless 
sadness of the young girl. They were arranging 
the accounts sent in by all the upholsterers, paint- 
ers, and workmen, who had contributed to the em- 
bellishment of their house, and they saw, with 
horrified astonishment, that the sum total of their 
expenditures had far exceeded their anticipations. 
Having retained the strictly economical princi- 
ples inculcated by their Aunt Lenette, they were 
much disturbed, and made many a wry face at 
the amount. 

Hyacinthe was especially disturbed, and uttered 
many profound sighs and groans, lamenting more 
particularly that the new arrangements had left 
vacant the two excellent rooms in the warehouse. 
“ It is a great pity,” he murmured to Delphin 
Nivard — “ a great pity, to throw away money in 
this Avay : those rooms ought to be utilized.” 

One morning the chief of bureau called upon 
the two brothers, and asked if they were serious 
in desiring to do something with those vacant 
rooms. “ They have,” he said, “ a separate stair- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


69 


case and an entrance on the Rue de la Miinici- 
palite, so that really you would not suffer the 
smallest inconvenience, and you have quanti- 
ties of old furniture to put into them if you 
should decide to let them. If you choose to put 
the matter into my hands I will arrange it for you. 
I know a young man of good habits and good 
family, sensible and quiet, who would be the very 
I person, and a tenant of whom any landlord might 
be proud. He is in quest of a furnished apart- 
! ment, and he would be only too happy to find it 
i under your roof.” 

The tenant suggested by Nivard was a young 
advocate attached to the bar of Villotte, and an- 
swering to the name of Xavier Duprat. Germain 
making no objection, Hyacinthe went to make in- 
quiries, and returned entirely satisfied with the 
result. Monsieur Duprat was already distin- 
, guished, his tastes were serious, his principles all 
that they should be, and his conduct entirely ex- 
emplary. He was a member of the Society of 
Saint-Fran 9 ois de Regis, and offered every guar- 
antee. The affair was concluded, then, through 
Nivard, and the new tenant was to take posses- 
sion on April 1st. 

On that day, in the afternoon, Laurence was 
occupied in arranging the vases of flowers in the 
small salon which she called her boudoir. Ger- 
; main had gone on a fishing-excursion to Belval, 

' Hyacinthe was out on business, when Catherine 

f 


70 the house of the two barbels. 

announced that the lodger wished to speak to 
madame. 

The lady nodded and indicated to the old ser- 
vant that the new-comer might be shown in, 
whereupon Monsieur Xavier Duprat made his 
appearance. From all that she had heard her 
husband and brother-in-law say, Laurence had 
drawn in her imagination a ridiculous enough por- 
trait of this magistrate in embryo. This lodger, 
patronized by Nivard and welcomed with such 
enthusiasm by the two Barbels, was, of course, 
some provincial, looking like a schoolmaster — 
awkward and clumsy in his ill-made black coat. 
She was more than agreeably surprised at the ap- 
pearance of the visitor, who entered with a pro- 
found bow. 

He was a tall and handsome fellow of about 
twenty-five. He wore a light-brown overcoat, 
which, thrown over his broad chest, showed a 
good figure in a tightly-buttoned coat ; light-gray 
pantaloons completed his simple toilet. The 
visitor’s gloves and boots, as well as the immacu- 
late whiteness of his fine linen, were all that they 
should be. He had not as yet shaved off his 
mustache in obedience to the mandate of the 
Villotte bar, and his beard was silky and chest- 
nut brown, setting off to wonderful advantage 
the rich, warm complexion and brown eyes, which 
were as velvety and caressing as those of a woman. 

“ Madame,” he began, “ I did not wish to in- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 71 


stall myself in your house without paying my 
respects to you, and telling you how happy I am 
in being allowed to call myself a lodger of Mon- 
sieur Laf rogue’s.” 

His voice was as sweet and caressing as his 
look ; perhaps even one might have preferred 
that the tones should have been less honeyed. 
But the voice was so melodious that it charmed 
instantaneously, and Laurence yielded at once to 
it, the more readily, possibly, because she was so 
totally unprepared for it. She was ashamed of 
■ the ideas in regard to him which she had taken 
I into her head, and in her most amiable tone she 
asked the young man if he had moved into his 
: apartment. 

i “ Hot yet,” he answered ; “ I left my luggage 
I at the foot of the staircase.” 

’ ‘‘Take a seat, monsieur,” resumed Laurence, 
r “ I will give directions that it shall be carried up, 

I and when things are in readiness you shall be in- 
j formed.” 

' She went out of the room for a moment, while 
the tenant looked around with some curiosity upon 
I the arrangements of the small salon in which he 

ii was. All the details, from the violets breathing 
I fragrance in their frail Venetian glasses, to the 
I bright-colored silks scattered on a dainty work- 
i table, spoke of youth, refinement, and coquetry, 

I in the presiding goddess. The low, soft chairs, 

{ the tall Japanese screens, and the Persian rugs, 

I 


all emitted a delightful perfume of luxury and 
wealth. i 

have notified Catherine,” said Laurence, ^ 
returning, “and everything will soon be in readi- \ 
ness.” 

They sat for a few moments in silence, both ^ 
uncertain of. their own impressions, while the vio- 
lets filled the warm atmosphere with their deli- t 
cious odors. Laurence seemed somewhat intimi- ^ 
dated by this unexpected tete-d-tete. Xavier Du- 
prat, on the contrary, was perfectly undisturbed, ^ 
and examined, with evident admiration, through ^ 
his half -shut eyes, the pretty face and fresh toilet t 
of his landlord’s wife, who, somewhat embarrassed j 
by the scrutiny, colored and moved her little foot t 
with nervousness. At last, unable to endure a J 
longer silence, she herself broke it: j 

“ You have not been long in Yillotte, I think, .3 
monsieur ? ” i 

He answered that he had just come from Paris, 
where he had taken his degree, and where he had 
lived for six years. 

“You have been living in Paris?” she cried, 
eagerly. “ I was there ! In what quarter ? I was 
born there ! ” 

He named a street near the Luxembourg. 

“ Ah ! ” she said, with a long sigh ; and, clos- 
ing her beautiful eyes, she sat, with her head ' 
thrown slightly back, dreaming of the garden, as ^ 
she had so often seen it on a spring afternoon : ^ 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 73 


the terrace, under the huge chestnut-trees, with 
the military band, arranged in a circle, and playing 
a waltz ; the students, with their swaggering airs, 

I walking about in noisy companionship between 
f the chairs ; the fresh green of the turf ; the dead 

white of the marble statues, thrown out against 
the lilac-hedge ; the water in the basin sparkling 
j in the Sunshine ; and here and there the harmoni- 
' ous fluttering of wings, as the ring-doves flew from 
I; the flowering chestnuts to the arms of a Mercury, 
! or to the shoulder of a Diana. She was there 

I I again, in spirit — there in that dear old corner of 
I Paris : she saw its every trifle ; she heard the gay 

shouts of the children at play, the braying of the 
copper-throated musical instruments, and even 
I received an occasional whiff of the well-known 
I odor of hot gaufres, mingling with the earthy 
I smell of the flower-beds freshly turned up. 

J She shook her head lightly, opened her eyes, 
‘ and saw the young man looking at her with re- 
j spectful admiration. 

“ Pardon me,” she stammered, “ I was thinking 
i of the Luxembourg. I walked there so often in 
the days that I lived in Paris ! How could you 
j ever leave it, monsieur, and come and bury yourself 
' alive in Villotte ? What will you do with your- 
! self in this country town ? ” 

, He started slightly, drawing back with a 
J shocked air ; and, assuming an imposing attitude 
i much affected by young lawyers, he answered in 

i' 


74 the house of the two barbels. 


a melancholy, pretentious tone, which many an 
actor might have envied : “ Madame, I work much, 
and I have no time for amusement. Besides, I am ac- 
customed to solitude, and by no means averse to it.’’ 

‘‘You are fortunate,” she cried, gayly. “I, 
on the contrary, am not so made. I shall never 
become accustomed to a place where there is no 
theatre, nor a library, nor a book to be got. It is 
not enough to say that I am sick of the place, I 
loathe it. I am not ennuyee here, I am simply 
stupefied.” 

He opened his eyes wide with a scandalized 
air. “ In my library,” he said, in a tone of mild 
compassion, “are a number of books — works of 
our contemporary authors — will you permit me, 
madame, to place them at your disposal ? ” 

She accepted the offer with cordial thanks, and 
at that moment Catherine entered to announce 
that the rooms were in readiness. 

Xavier Duprat bowed profoundly, and they sep- 
arated ; but, as he crossed his own threshold, the 
future magistrate smiled in his beard, and I am 
quite sure that his instinct taught him that he had I 
left tokens of his presence in the warmed and ^ 
scented boudoir of Madame Lafrogne. | 

In fact, he had sown there the germs of new 
sensations, whose rapid flowering would yield a 
better perfume, and which would be more lasting 
than the violets and hyacinths in the jardinieres. 
After his departure Laurence sat for a long 

: 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 75 

time silent and thoughtful. It seemed to her 
that the sunshine was brighter and that the flow- 
ers had more of the freshness of spring in their 
fragrance. That evening at supper she told of 
Monsieur Duprat’s visit, and praised the young 
man with enthusiasm. Hyacinthe agreed with all 
she said ; as to Germain, he had hardly seen his 
new tenant, but appeared much pleased that he 
suited his wife and his brother so well, and prom- 
ised to return his visit during the week. 

The installation of Monsieur Duprat in the 
house in the Rue du Bourg had imparted to Lau- 
rence’s life an entirely new interest. The pres- 
ence of this fine-looking young man — a man of the 
world as well as a student — seemed to have reju- 
venated and aroused the sleeping household. The 
! days were less long to Madame Lafrogne, and that 
night she went off to sleep, soothed by the pleas- 
, ant thought that in the morning, when she opened 
her window, she should see Xavier at his. 

The windows of the small salon opened on 
the court, and faced those of Monsieur Duprat’s 
study ; and the following evening, as she watered 
her flowers, Laurence cast a shy glance opposite, 
and caught a glimpse of the young man as he sat 
at work at his desk. She saw him rise and come 
to the window, where he leaned with a thoughtful 
air. Suddenly he perceived Madame Lafrogne, 
and, bowing ceremoniously, retreated with haste, 
as if he feared to be suspected of indiscretion. 


76 the house of the two barbels. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Xaviee Dupeat was tlie fourth child of a 
lawyer at Metz. His parents, having three daugh- 
ters to settle in life, had given to their son as his 
sole patrimony a careful education and advanta- 
geous introductions. After he had got through 
college, he was sent to Paris for a course at the 
law-school. 

The young man left home having in his pocket 
only about eighteen hundred francs, but furnished 
with an ample provision of wise counsels, very 
similar to those given by Polonius to his son 
Hamlet : never to conflict or outrage in any way 
the principles of law and order ; never to set at 
defiance les biens^ances, nor give offense to per- 
sons in authority ; to cultivate intimacies with 
people higher than himself on the social ladder ; 
to be attentive and courteous to elderly women, 
and to distrust his first impulses ; to speak little, 
and hear a great deal. Young Duprat, endowed 
with unbounded ambition, strong will, and a crafty 
mind, followed these parental instructions to the 
very letter, and had, in consequence, met with 
such success in the world that he was received at 
Yillotte as a man far on the road to distinction. 
He was regarded as having serious aims in life, 
and destined eventually to attain the highest 
positions. Educated by the good Fathers of the 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 77 


College St. -Augustin, he had early learned to con- 
duct himself with prudence and skill, and, at a 
period when a certain amount of religious austerity 
had come temporarily into vogue, he understood 
the secret of combining injudicious proportion a de- 
vout hearing with worldly amusements ; assisting 
on the same day at the conferences of the Lazarist 
Fathers, and going later to a ball at the prefect’s ; 
adding to his air of religious devotion the ami- 
able varnish of a man of good society ; in a word, 
he was polite, insinuating, courteous, and politic. 
Were these not qualities to insure his worldly 
success ? 

He did wonders in this little town, where 
mothers cited him as an example to their ado- 
lescent sons, and where fathers of marriageable 
daughters greeted him with encouraging smiles. 
Astute and cunning as he was, he quickly per- 
ceived the impression that he had produced on 
Madame Lafrogne. More than one man of his 
age would have yielded to the temptation. The 
lady was pretty, elegant, and wealthy — in a posi- 
tion to greatly flatter the vanity of a man of gal- 
lantry. Besides, it was very evident that her hus- 
band neglected her, and that she was utterly wea- 
I ried by the life she led, and that she would have 
: small reluctance to accept a consoler. But Xavier 
I Duprat was prudent, and had the faculty of look- 
ing into the future ; and, while his twenty-five 
; years rebelled against this dull town, so empty of 


78 the house of the two barbels. 


all resources, lie yet determined in no way to 
compromise and bring remarks upon himself, but 
to take each step with the most excessive caution. 
The forbidden fruit tempted him sorely, but he 
preferred that the branch should come to him and 
put it into his hands. In short, compromising 
with his conscience in a manner that is by no 
means rare in natures that are more adroit than 
honest, he had no objection to sinning, provided 
that in the eyes of the world he could be regarded 
as a man who had sinned in spite of himself, and 
against his own wishes ! 

Consequently, he took care not to profit by 
the permission accorded by Laurence, to carry her 
himself the books of which he had spoken. For 
a fortnight he kept away, contenting himself with 
respectful glances in the direction of her window. 
He was rewarded for his patience, for one fine 
Sunday he received a ceremonious visit from Ger- 
main Lafrogne. 

Xavier Duprat appeared to his landlord in the 
guise of a serious and somewhat reserved young 
man— entirely absorbed in his business. The con- 
versation was affable and cordial. On leaving, 
Germain said to Xavier : 

By-the-way, my wife begged me to remind 
you that you promised to lend her some books.” 

Xavier excused himself on the ground of his 
numerous occupations, and proposed that Monsieur 
de Lafrogne should carry the volumes himself. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


? Madame Lafrogne’s request is perhaps a trifle 

( indiscreet,” resumed the husband ; “ excuse her. 
\ She is a great reader, and devours everything 
I she can find. Our own library is but poorly fur- 
I nished.” 

I Xavier took from a shelf ‘‘ Yalentine,” “La 
j Confession d’un Enfant du Siecle,” and the “ Poe- 
i sies de Musset.” These books he intrusted to 
I Germain, who carried them off most innocently, 

I knowing nothing of them, not even the names of 
; the authors. 

I For a devotee, the choice was somewhat sin- 
I gular ; but Xavier thought probably that it was 
j necessary to give to people the books best adapted 
to their tastes ; and that feminine minds, like 
feminine stomachs, liked dainties better than solid 
meats. 

Before making his appearance at the Lafrognes’ 
again, he waited patiently until the books of De 
I Musset and George Sand had produced all their 
j effects on the young imagination of the girl. He 
li made no attempt to see her except from his win- 
1 dow, from which post he bowed to her both morn- 
i ing and evening. He, however, grasped every op- 
I portunity of intercourse with the husband, whom 
I he even accompanied one afternoon to the farm at 
i Rembercourt. Laurence was not with them, and 
f Germain, with the true spirit of the owner of a 
\ landed estate, showed his guest every nook and 
1 corner — his kennels and stables, and his granaries 


80 the house of the two barbels. 


— and took him back to town that night thorough- 
ly fatigued. 

Germain was enchanted with his new acquaint- 
ance. ‘‘ He is a very nice fellow,” he said to his 
wife and Hyacinthe. “ He is at once a student and 
an agreeable companion ; a trifle too ceremonious, 
perhaps, but there are worse faults than that. I 
asked him to take pot-luck with us to-night, but 
he would not come up. He made such a host of 
excuses that I let him go, for I really could not 
take him by the collar, you know ! ” 

Laurence smiled superciliously, but in her 
heart she was excessively annoyed. She could not 
understand Xavier’s extreme reserve. For two 
weeks the “ crystallization ” of which De Stendahl 
speaks had been going on in the young woman. 
Spring-time, with its soft languors, the books sent 
by Monsieur Duprat — all lent their influence to 
this silent blossoming of love. 

Buried in the luxurious cushions of her chaise 
longue, behind the curtains of her sunny windows, 
Laurence devoured ‘‘ Les Xuits,” and from time 
to time cast a glance through the parted folds of 
muslin at Xavier’s window. Sometimes, at an 
early hour in the morning, or at twilight, she 
would catch a glimpse of him as he turned over 
his books. After supper, she Avould intrench 
herself behind her blinds, and spend an hour or 
two watching him as he moved about his study, 
softly lighted by a shaded lamp upon his desk. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 81 

The young man did not close his windows until 
late into the night. Crouched in the darkness, 
Laurence could distinguish books piled upon 
the table, and the polished globe of the lamp, 
around which hovered a host of winged things, 
attracted from the outer air by the light within. 
She saw Xavier’s clear-cut profile as he leaned 
over his papers, and watched him as he moved 
from his desk to his book-shelves. She thought 
him superbly handsome, haughty, and sad, like 
the Benedict in ‘‘Valentine.” She endowed him 
with all the passionate and disdainful melancholy 
of Musset’s heroes, and she compassionated him 
that his life was so lonely. She envied the very 
butterflies who could go into his room so un- 
ceremoniously and flutter around his table. She 
would have given much to be able to penetrate, 
all unknown to him, to this austere apartment, and 
to appear to him suddenly, like the consoling Muse 
of the “ Xuit de Mai.” 

One morning it so chanced that she was ena- 
bled to gratify this fancy, and she found it impos- 
sible to resist the temptation. Xavier was in 
court, and the chambermaid who had the care of 
the lodger’s rooms came to Laurence for fresh white 
curtains for his study- windows. After a moment’s 
hesitation, she determined to accompany the wom- 
an under the pretext of returning the books she 
had borrowed. “ After all,” she said to herself, 
“ where is the harm ? Is it not the right thing 
6 


82 the house of the two barbels. 


for the mistress of the house to attend personally 
to all the details of housekeeping ? ” In spite of 
this sagacious argument, her heart heat quickly as 
she ascended Duprat’s private stairs. 

As soon as she entered the room she saw that 
the curtains were too short — a hem must he 
ripped and a facing put on : the maid took them 
away to make the necessary alterations ; and 
Laurence, being now left alone, had ample leisure 
to investigate the sanctuary made precious hy 
Xavier’s daily presence and toil. 

The room hore a close resemblance to its ab- 
sent occupant — elegant yet severe in its style. 
One side of the study was occupied by an enor- 
mous bookcase, with glass doors, well filled with 
rows of books in brown bindings. An enormous 
ivory crucifix upon a ground of black velvet faced 
the desk. The walls were heavily hung with en- 
gravings after Ary Scheffer, representing “ Saint 
Augustin and Sainte-Monica,” and “ Mignon.” 

Upon the chimney was a bronze bust of 
D’Aguesseau standing between two jars, in 
which grew plants with foliage of a dull metallic 
green. The writing-table was encumbered with 
manuscripts and law-books ; in a corner, on a 
gub'idon, were carelessly thrown a pair of pearl- 
gray gloves, a prayer-book, and a photograph- 
album. 

This last strongly excited Laurence’s curiosity. 
She scrutinized the Russia-leather binding and the 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 83 


steel clasps, and some demon impelled her to open 
it. These albums are generally a sort of private 
museum, whose portraits may furnish a keen ob- 
server with more than one glimpse into the pres- 
ent and the past of their owner. Laurence was 
wild to see the faces in Xavier’s album. The maid 
would be occupied for at least an hour in length- 
ening those curtains ; Duprat could not leave the 
court-room until eleven, and it was now just ten ; 
she would be undisturbed, therefore, for some 
time, and she could gratify her curiosity. She 
quickly snapped the clasps and opened the volume. 
The first pages were filled by the portraits of 
Xavier’s father and mother ; then came three 
extremely ugly girls — his sisters, probably. These 
were followed by a succession of grave-looking 
personages, wearing decorations and white cra- 
vats — the solemn faces of old magistrates. After 
these came a collection of ecclesiastics — reverend 
fathers with gentle faces — monks with the worn 
features of ascetics ; worldly and smiling abbes. 
Laurence pursued her investigations, somewhat 
reassured by all this pious and venerable assem- 
blage, but still fearing with each leaf she turned 
that she should behold some woman’s face, young 
and pretty, whose very presence would reveal 
a mystery of love. Suddenly the door opened, 
and Xavier Duprat, bearing his green bag stuffed 
full of papers, appeared before the startled eyes 
of his inquisitive visitor. 


84 the house of the two bakbels. 


She uttered a sharp little cry, shut the album 
hastily, and an intense blush suffused her fair face 
from chin to brow. 

Xavier looked at her with an air of astonish- 
ment mingled with severity, and a dash of sar- 
casm was apparent in his voice, wherein was also 
a slight tone of secret satisfaction. “You, ma- 
dame, here in my room ! ” he said. He closed the 
door carefully, threw his bag and papers on a 
chair, and took several steps toward the culprit, 
who stood ashamed in silence with her eyes cast 
down. 

“ Oh, sir ! ” she murmured in intense confu- 
sion. “ Forgive me, I beg of you ! The curtains 
were too short — Marianne has gone to lengthen 
them, and — ” 

“ And you remained — so I see,” said the young 
man, completing her sentence still in the same 
stern, hard voice. 

She did not know where to look, and confused- 
ly repeated, turning away her eyes : “ I am so 
sorry. Forgive me for the indiscretion I have 
been guilty of in opening this book.” 

“ That is nothing,” he replied, ironically. “We 
will not speak of that. But you have probably 
forgotten that in a small town like this the most 
innocent acts have the most evil constructions put 
upon them. What would the world say did they 
know that you were here ? ” 

“ Oh ! ” answered Laurence, haughtily throw- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 85 

ing back her bead. ‘‘ I am fortunately above the 
reach of gossips. The only wrong I have commit- 
ted was to open this album, and I shall be truly 
distressed if you will not accept my apologies.” 

“ I repeat that that is a matter of no conse- 
quence whatever,” he observed, still cold and 
grave. 

“ I see by your tone that you bear me malice, 
monsieur. Will you not say before I, leave that 
you will forget as well as forgive ? ” 

“ Certainly, madame — certainly.” 

‘‘ Good-by, sir,” and she extended her hand ; 
but he, unmoved from his r6le of Puritan, feigned 
not to see the delicate hand, and merely bowed 
ceremoniously. She stood motionless and acutely 
mortified by his haughty disdain. Shame, anger, 
and nervous excitement, caused by this most unex- 
pected scene and rebuff, brought the tears to her 
eyes, and in a moment more they rolled down her 
cheeks. 

This artless girlishness was so charming that 
the young lawymr was touched through his armor 
of icy dignity and assumed puritanical reserve. 
Her tears stirred the depths of his nature. In 
short, he had achieved his purpose. Laurence 
was compromised — ^had compromised herself — 
and no one could accuse him of having drawn 
the girl down the perilous path. After all, he 
wished no harm to the pretty sinner, and he 
would be merciful and relent ! His eyes soft- 


86 the house of the two barbels. 


ened, and gradually assumed an expression of 
tenderness ; he took one of Laurence’s hands in 
both of his. “ My dear madame,” he murmured, 
“ let me in my turn ask forgiveness.” 

His voice thrilled her with its sweetness. He 
drew up an arm-chair and forced Laurence to 
take it, then leaning paternally on the hack, he 
looked down upon her with eyes full of admira- 
tion and indulgence. 

Laurence, though reassured by this transfor- 
mation, was still too much disturbed to speak, 
and merely turned toward him with an expression 
of lively gratitude, her superb eyes swimming 
in tears, while a faint smile parted her scarlet 
lips. 

‘‘Ah,” she sighed, “how thankful I am that 
you are not really vexed with me, even if you did 
not wish to have me here ! ” 

“ Not wish to have you here ! ” he repeated, 
as he leaned over her. “ Can you form any idea 
of the emotion I felt when, returning to my soli- 
tary room, I found you here — you in all your 
youth and beauty ? ” 

He whispered these words in her very ear, and 
his lips touched the ripples of her abundant hair. 
Laurence sighed, and submitted more and more 
to the influence of his caressing voice, of his soft 
eyes fixed on hers, and, involuntarily fascinated, 
she turned her head toward him. 

“ That will never do ! ” she murmured ; “ af- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 87 


ter having lectured me, you think to make amends 
by compliments ! ” 

“ They are not compliments — I merely express 
my honest feelings.” 

As he uttered this last word, his head stooped 
still lower, and his lips slowly pressed two long 
kisses on the eyes which were smilingly uplifted 
to his. 

{Startled by this lingering caress, and utterly 
astounded, she did not at first repulse him ; but in 
an instant she realized the truth ; her conscience 
stung her — she was horrified at the audacity of 
the young man, and at all she had done and per- 
mitted. Then, at once intoxicated and ashamed 
— scarlet, and with downcast eyes — she started to 
her feet, repulsed the hands which sought to snatch 
hers, and, without saying a single word, rushed to 
the door and disappeared. 


CHAPTER VII. ^ 

Xavier passed the afternoon thinking over 
the events and impressions of the morning. His 
vanity was profoundly flattered, for had he not 
touched the heart of a fashionable woman of the . f 

world — elegant, coquettish, and radiant, with all -’j 

the fresh beauty of her nineteen years ! The $ 

taint of sensuality which lies within the depths of i 

every Iminan nature began to ferment. Extended I 


88 the house of the two bakbels. 


in the arm-chair which Laurence had occupied, he 
breathed again the delicate odor of violets with 
which all the laces and ribbons of the girl were 
permeated ; he closed his eyes, and lived over 
again each word, look, and act. On that day he 
made no effort to again disturb the solitude where- 
in Madame Lafrogne had intrenched herself. It 
seemed to him in better taste to show himself at 
first generous and reserved ; but the following 
morning he resolved to take another step onward, 
and, after making a most careful toilet, took two 
novels of Balzac as a motive for his visit, and 
started forth to call on Madame Lafrogne. 

As he crossed the court-yard he met Germain. 
‘‘Are you going to see my wife. Monsieur Du- 
prat ? ” exclaimed his landlord ; “ it is of no use : 
you will not find her. She went to Rembercourt 
yesterday.” 

And, as the face of the young man lengthened 
involuntarily at this information, Germain con- 
tinued : “We do not like it much, Hyacinthe 
and I, because we have work on hand which will 
keep us here into June, and we can therefore 
only spend Sundays with her there, but we could 
not oppose her wishes, as she says she is not well, 
and thinks that country air will do her a world 
of good. You know, when women take a notion 
into their heads, that it is no use to go contrary 
to them.” 

The young man returned to his rooms much 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 89 


disappointed. This sudden flight adopted by 
Laurence deranged all his combinations, and yet 
one reflection mingled a drop of sweetness with 
all the bitterness of his discovery. It was clear 
that Madame Lafrogne was afraid of herself, or 
• of him or of both, to have fled in this sudden 
fashion. This haste to depart showed him the 
extent of the fascination he had already exer- 
cised, and marked also the perception that Lau- 
rence had of her own weakness. 

In fact, Xavier was correct in his diagnosis 
— Laurence was afraid. Like many a good wom- 
an, she thought a Platonic aiffection perfectly 
allowable — a most innocent distraction — and of 
which no husband should complain. She had 
pleased herself with the fancy that the love of 
this young man, so serious and elevated in his na- 
ture, would constantly hover in immaterial and 
angelic spheres ; that between them no question 
of passion could ever arise, and that the thought 
of forbidden things would, like a tireless swallow, 
fly far above their heads, without ever alighting 
to rest its wearied wings — and the fall had been 
so swift ! the ideal flight had been so brief ! The 
lady was intensely irritated by those two imper- 
tinent kisses which had been pressed upon her 
eyes ; and yet, amid all her irritation, she felt a 
certain intoxication as she recalled them, and also 
the caressing music of the words which Xavier 
had whispered in her ear. 


90 the house of the two barbels. 


As slie had an honest nature which abhorred 
duplicity, she felt wretchedly uncomfortable in 
the presence of her husband and Hyacinthe. It 
seemed to her that they must see the traces of 
Xavier’s kiss on her face — and in the presence of 
the two Barbels she dared not bestow a single , 
thought upon her fascinating and audacious neigh- 
bor. 

Consequently, she seized the first pretext which 
offered itself to take refuge at Rembercourt. In 
this retreat, happily situated between the river 
and a long tongue of the forest, Laurence believed 
that she should be both more protected and more 
at liberty. She had nothing to fear from the per- 
ilous vicinity of Xavier and his window ; she 
could think of him, too, as much as she pleased, 
without blushing if she met her husband’s eyes ; 
she would enjoy all the delicate aroma of a grande 
passion, without being drawn into its dangerous ; 
vortex. ; 

This innocent illusion was of no long duration. 
From the day after her departure, Xavier Duprat 
became an assiduous visitor to the forest. On 
leaving the little village of Fains, the wooded hill, 
which forms one of the slopes of the valley, ad- 
vances like a promontory over the plain, overlook- 
ing the sleepy waters of a canal, and all the farm- . ; 
buildings. From the summit, a cutting in the j 
forest-trees, directly in front of Rembercourt, per- ■ 
mitted one to look directly down, without being i 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BAKBELS. 


91 


; himself seen, into the heart of the gardens and 
j courts. It was in this spot that Xavier installed 
i himself day after day. Lying at full length in 
the breezy shade, he calmly watched from this 
observatory all that went on at the farm. To 
gratify his eyes during the long hours when he 
lay in ambush, the valley displayed all the wealth 
I of her summer garb. The orchards, where the 
j cherries were reddening in the sun, were full of 
I singing birds ; the meadows, with their many tints 
I of green, waved and rustled in the soft summer 
I air, while here and there were patches of warmer 
I tones ; between the willows and the poplars the 
I river glittered like melted silver ; and, on the 
! other shore, rose the hills of Yarney and De Bus- 
sy, their banks of phosphorescent green thrown 
out against the blue sky. Amid all this there were 
flights of pigeons, a melodious rush of wings ; 

: there were the crowing of cocks from the farm, 

; the loud snap of a whip -lash from the high- 
; way, and the swift passage of a railway-train,. 
I which crossed the valley, with a sharp whistle 
from the locomotive. But Xavier Duprat, caring 
' little for Nature, was absorbed in one thing — the 
j small house with green blinds, which stood in one 
i angle of the farm. Armed with a lorgnette, he 
I had for his objective point this secluded dwelling, 

! whose sunny whiteness was half hidden by the 
j trees in the orchard. He indulged the hope that 
j Laurence, weary of her seclusion, would be 


92 the house of the two barbels. / 

i 

tempted by the freshness of the forest, and tha; ^ 
she would come to the wood. At last, one fine 
day, his patience was rewarded. He saw Madame 
Lafrogne open the door which looked toward the 
forest, and come rapidly down the slope and 
across the canal, and then disappear behind the 
trees. As fleet as a goat he sprang along the 
shady path, and, as Laurence was advancing in 
the opposite direction, it was not long before, on 
suddenly turning an angle in the path, she met 
Xavier Duprat face to face. 

She stifled a cry of surprise, turned scarlet, 
and stood still at the foot of a beech-tree. 

“ Pardon me, madame,” said Xavier, bowing 
very low — “ pardon me for having startled you. 
Believe me when I say that, in spite of appear- 
ances, my presence here is entirely unpremedi- 
tated. For the last week I have been oppressed 
with the solitude of my rooms. Your blinds, so 
persistently closed, have made me doubly sensible 
of my loneliness ; and, in desperation, I threw 
aside my books and work, and rushed out into 
the air. A secret attraction impelled me in this 
direction, but I was far from dreaming of the in- 
discretion of disturbing your solitude. Chance 
alone is to blame for it.” 

Laurence believed of this speech as much and 
as little as she pleased, but the attitude of the 
young man was so full of respectful admiration, 
his voice had such tender inflections, his gentle, 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 93 


submissive air offered so strong a contrast to his 
audacity of the week previous, that she came to 
the conclusion that an excess of rigor would be 
simply ridiculous ; instead, therefore, of retreat- 
ing, she continued her way by his side in the 
path, which was so narrow that two persons could 
not walk there without touching each other. 

Xavier’s tongue was golden, and the conversa- 
tion did not languish. Side by side, arm-in-arm, 
they loitered along the mossy path ; the sunlight, 
flickering through the branches of the beech-trees, 
rained luminous drops upon the grass and leaves ; 
in this chiaro-oscuro blue columbines and tall 
spotted orchids lifted their lovely heads, while in 
the heart of the forest the goldhammer’s delicate, 
flute-like warble arose above the deep bass of the 
ring-dove’s cooing. 

Without any absurd declamation, with an 
easy grace, and with sufficient melancholy, Xavier 
spoke of his great loneliness, of the need he felt 
at times of some friend who would cure him of 
his occasional attacks of homesickness. He had 
had such a happy childhood — his mother adored 
him ! The future judge understood to a marvel- 
ous degree how to play upon the strings of mater- 
nal sentiment and family joys. Laurence listened 
to him with continually-increasing sympathy. 
The beauty of this June afternoon added still 
more to the charm of the young man’s words, and 
during several hours Laurence rested under the 


94 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS.' 


charm, so that the sun was already low when she 
thought of returning to the farm. He went back f 
with her to the edge of the forest, and succeeded 
in obtaining from her the promise of appearing 
the next day at the same place. 

She kept her word. Both of them enjoyed - 
this playing truant in the forest-depths. The 
lovely weather, the delicious intoxication of a 
new-born love, the piquant flavor of forbidden 
fruit, and, above all, the frank audacity of youth, 
enabled Laurence to forget the perils of these 
clandestine hours. As to Xavier Duprat, en- 
chanted by the turn that matters had taken, he 
yet showed himself delicate and reserved, taking 
excellent care not to risk the situation by too rapid 
attacks. He therefore remained respectful and 
prudent. With all the prudence of a man of the 
world and of reflnement, he cared little for en- 
dearments in a spot which a wood-cutter or a 
guard could come up and interrupt. He was like 
a schoolboy who has stolen some beautiful fruit, ^ 
and who, knowing that he has it in security in 
the bottom of his pocket, contents himself by 
touching it with his finger from time to time, i 
while waiting for an hour when he may enjoy it | 
at his leisure. | 

He came to the conclusion that, when he ^ 
had obtained complete control of Laurence, and ^ 
held her in absolute subjection, it would be easy ' 
to insinuate himself into the good graces of the 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 95 

I two Barbels, who were just the people to lead by 
the nose. He would become the friend of the 
house, the preferred guest, and, without endan- 
gering his reputation, without compromising his 
' future, without making any scandal, he could find 
: in that comfortable dining-room good quarters, 

good suppers, and much more. 

An unfortunate incident spoiled this pleasing 
plan. Up to this time fine weather had favored 
the two young people ; but one afternoon, while 
they were in the forest, the sky grew dark, and a 
sudden clap of thunder told them that a storm 
was near at hand. They were on the slope which 
leads down toward Fains, and a flash of lightning 
showed them the valley dark with overhanging 
black clouds. The river, too, was black ; heavy 
masses of fog and rain were beginning to hide the 
hills under gray drapery. The^ could not remain 
in the forest without shelter, and they ran along 
I the path in search of a shelter less penetrable than 
I the branches of the beeches. At the base of the 
[ hill there was a brewery, well known to sportsmen 
: and anglers, who were in the habit of lingering 

there when the fish refused to bite. Laurence and 
Xavier, running rapidly, rushed into the press- 
; room, one of the out-buildings of the establish- 
ment, and there, hidden behind the vats, waited 
I for the end of the tempest. It was so dark in this 
I building, which was lighted but dimly by the door 
at the best of times, that they had little fear of 


96 the house of the two barbels. 

being recognized. At the termination of a half-, 
hour the thunder-claps were less frequent, and the 
lightning less vivid and farther off. The rain 
diminished, and one ray of sunshine pierced the 
darkness of the press-room, and announced to the 
two fugitives that they could again betake them- 
selves to flight. 

As they left their shelter, just under the 
porch, they fell into the arms of a person who 
was running toward them, drenched with rain, 
and who was evidently seeking refuge in the 
brewery. Now, by a most unfortunate chance, 
this unknown was no other than Delphin Nivard ! 
Laurence was the first to recognize him. “ Let us 
run,” she said, in a low voice to Xavier ; ‘‘ it 
is Monsieur Nivard ! ” 

They hurried away. When they had gone a 
hundred yards or so, Xavier said, ‘‘ Are you sure 
that it was he ? ” 

“ I am, indeed,” she answered, “ particularly 
as he was to dine at the farm to-day with Hya- 
cinthe and Monsieur Lafrogne.” 

Xavier Duprat turned and looked back with 
an anxious air. It was indeed Nivard. He was 
standing on the threshold, and with his hand 
shading his eyes was evidently watching the 
figures of the retreating couple as they disap- 
peared in the fading mists of the storm. 

“ How maddening ! ” murmured Xavier Du- 
prat, whose face grew dark. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 97 


Laurence was as much disturbed as her com- 
panion, hut, seeing his anxiety, she wished to re- 
assure him. 

‘‘ Pshaw ! ” she said, his eyes are wretched, 
and he really only saw our hacks. I will hasten to 
Remhercourt, and change my dress before he can 
get there, which will of course put him olf the 
track. To-morrow morning he at the entrance of 
the wood, and I will tell you all that has hap- 
pened.” 

They parted at once. The next day at three 
o’clock Xavier was still awaiting Madame La- 
frogne at the indicated rendezvous. 

The same day at two, the employes in Xivard’s 
office were excessively astonished at seeing their 
chief take off his alpaca sleeves, brush his hat, and 
vacate his leather chair. Delphin Xivard was a 
model of assiduous industry, and this conduct was 
so utterly abnormal that it stupefied all the quill- 
drivers in his division. The chief of bureau 
passed through two or three crooked streets, 
reached the canal and took a path along its side, 
which led him directly to the farm. It was the 
longest way, but it was also the least frequented. 
He thus, masked by the overhanging trees, reached 
the lower edge of the forest, and there, with the 
agility of a wild-cat and the cunning of a poacher, 
he found his way through the underbrush, and 
reached an opening which commanded an entire 
view of Rembercourt. 

7 


98 the house of the two barbels. 


The clock on the church-tower had just struck' 
half -past three, when Laurence left the farm and 
entered the path where Duprat was awaiting her. 

“Well?” he asked, looking at the somewhat 
pale face of the lady, with the scrutinizing eyes 
of a judge who holds a witness under examina- 
tion. 

“ Do not he troubled,” she answered ; “ I do 
not think that Nivard had any suspicion. When 
he reached the farm, my whole costume had been 
changed. He seemed just the same as usual, and 
did not utter one word which could lead me to be- 
lieve that he thought of me in connection with 
the lady whom he had seen earlier in the after- 
noon. I know the nature of the man so well that 
I am convinced that, if he had the smallest sus- 
picion, he would not have hesitated to make some 
malicious allusions, for he is by no means fond of 
me, and would be quite willing to do me a mis- 
chief.” 

“ Ko matter,” answered Xavier, abruptly ; 
“ these walks — this strolling about in broad day- 
light — are the height of imprudence, and they 
must be given up.” 

She looked at him with eyes full of sorrowful 
surprise. 

“Very well, then,” she murmured, “since you 
desire it.” 

“It is for your sake,” he sighed, in a tone of 
hypocritical self-abnegation. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BAKBELS. 99 

She shrugged her shoulders and drew down 
the corners of her mouth in a rebellious fashion. 

“ Besides,” he insinuated gently, “ it seems to 
me that there are other ways of seeing each other 
— ways more simple and less hazardous.” 

“ What are they ? ” 

‘‘You are alone nearly every evening in the 
week ; what prevents you from receiving me at 
Rembercourt ? ” 

“ It is impossible ! — absolutely impossible ! 
What would the farmers and servants think ? ” 

“ Your house is separated by the garden from 
the farm, and all the people go to sleep, like the 
chickens, at nightfall.” 

“I am not alone — Marianne is with me.” 

“ Your maid ? She sleeps in the attic and you 
on the first fioor. You can get rid of her at an 
early hour, and, if you have the door unlocked, it 
will be very easy for me to come in — ” 

“ I will never consent to it — never ! ” she 
repeated, vehemently. “ It would be infamous— 
utterly disgraceful ! No — never ! ” 

“ The disgrace would simply lie in the scandal 
which would arise should it ever be known,” he 
answered, in a hard, sharp voice, which was new 
to her ear. “Rather than expose you to evil 
tongues, and run the constant risks which you 
suffer in these walks in the forests, I will give up 
seeing you altogether.” 

Her head drooped, and she was silent for a few 


100 the house of the two barbels. 

moments. ISTo,” she murmured, as if she were 
speaking to herself — “ no, I cannot permit him to 
come clandestinely to Remhercourt. To allow 
such a thing would he absolute treachery on my 
part.” 

“ Do you prefer, then, that I should climb the 
wall ? ” he asked, ironically. 

• She was innocent enough to take this bravado 
in earnest. “ Do not think of such a thing ! ” she 
exclaimed in terror. “ The dogs are let loose at 
night, and they would leap at your throat ! ” 

He saw at once how he could work on her girl- 
ish credulity and fears, and continued in a reso- 
lute tone : “ I shall make the attempt to-night, at 
half -past nine,” he continued, “ and we will see 
what Monsieur Lafrogne’s dogs will have to say 
about it.” 

“ But it is absolute madness ! ” she cried, clasp- 
ing her hands entreatingly. 

‘‘ I assure you that I am in earnest. To-mor- 
row night I will scale the wall — at least I will do 
so if you refuse to open the door ! ” 

It is impossible ! ” 

‘‘That is your last word? Very well, then 
— to-morrow night expect me, unless something 
should happen.” With an offended air he left 
her abruptly, and disappeared down the path, be- 
fore she could find a word to say in reply. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 101 


CHAPTER VIII. 

About one o’clock the next afternoon the two 
Barbels were at work in their dusty little room, 
which smelt of the samples of dye-stuffs that 
incumbered the tables and were suspended on 
the walls. Musty ledgers, and the bills and ac- 
counts of the house, put on files, filled every avail- 
able space. It was excessively warm ; through 
the open windows, shaded by clambering nastur- 
tiums and clematis, instead of blinds, came the 
soft buzz of the honey-bees in the balsam-beds ; 
and an occasional breeze passing through the 
larger room brought with it the odor of ginger 
and nutmegs. 

Hyacinthe, perched on his high stool at his 
desk, with the legs of his. pantaloons carefully 
pulled up that they might not be wrinkled at the 
knees, was at work copying from his day-book, 
and between the crossbars of his stool were to 
be seen his thin ankles incased in gray hose. 
Germain, with his pipe between his teeth, was 
opening a huge pile of letters, just brought in 
from the noon mail. 

Among these commercial dispatches, on blue 
paper, a letter post-marked Villotte ” attracted 
his attention. In a small town it is an unusual 
occurrence for its inhabitants to employ the post 


102 the house of the two barbels. 

to communicate with their neighbors. The super- 
scription of the envelope bore the name of Ger- 
main Lafrogne, in the hand of a schoolboy. The 
younger Barbel broke the seal, and began to read. 
Suddenly he dashed his pipe on the table, and 
uttered an exclamation, which made Hyacinthe 
start and look around. Germain was deadly pale, 
and his hands trembled. 

“ What is it, boy ? ” asked his brother, in as- 
tonishment. 

Germain handed him the letter. 

“ Look ! See what some one has written,” he 
murmured, in a strange, hoarse voice. 

Hyacinthe, in his turn, read the letter, which 
was in these words : 

‘‘Monsieur Germain Lafrogne is advised to 
beware of his tenant, who is too often seen in the 
vicinity of Rembercourt. Monsieur Lafrogne is 
also informed that, if he wishes to know why his 
wife was in such haste to go to the farm, and 
to be satisfied as to the extent of her intimacy 
with Monsiem* Duprat, he has only to repair to 
Rembercourt himself to-night after dark.” 

The note was signed “ Good Intentions.” 

“ It is infamous ! ” cried Hyacinthe. 

“Very true,” replied Germain ; “ but the per- 
son who sent the letter knew what he was say- 
ing, and has sent a knife through my heart.” 

“ Come, now ! ” returned the elder Barbel, in 
a tone that he endeavored to make reassuring. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 103 


“ I think you know too much to pay any attention 
to an anonymous letter.” 

‘‘I should like not to believe it ; hut what ob- 
ject could any one have in writing it to me ? We 
have no enemies.” 

But plenty of envious persons surround us. 
And, then, there is such a thing as a joke — ^poor 
though it may be, I admit.” 

‘‘ Such jokes as this one are rarely perpetrated,” 
answered Germain, gloomily, as he closed the win- 
dow. ‘‘Since reading that letter many an inci- 
dent has been recalled to me, to which, at the 
time, I attached no importance. I have realized, 
too, for the first time, that Laurence is very 
young, and that I am double her age. She is 
fond of pleasure, and we are not amusing ; then, 
I am a bear, and this gentleman up-stairs has 
most courtly manners.” 

“But he is high-principled and religious. I 
cannot believe him capable of such baseness.” 

“ You know nothing of the world, Hyacinthe ; 
you judge others by yourself. Look here ! neither 
you nor I know anything of women. How I wish 
that night would come ! This suspense is intoler- 
able!” 

“ Do you mean to go to the farm to-night ? ” 

“Do I mean to go to the farm?” repeated 
Germain, in a tone of intense irritation. “ What 
a question I ” 

“ Listen, boy ! ” resumed the good Hyacinthe, 


104 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 

after a moment’s thought. ‘‘ Take my advice. 
Set out at once for Remhercourt. If this accusa- 
tion has the smallest foundation, it is much better 
to prevent the evil than to punish it. Your pres- 
ence will prevent your wife from committing a 
fault, and will save both you and herself much 
misery.” 

“ ^No,” replied Germain, sharply. “ Now that 
suspicion has entered my brain, such a step would 
not dissipate it. Supposing I should find Lau- 
rence established quietly in her garden, and that 
nothing should take place to-night, I should be 
all the time saying to myself, ‘ If I had not come, 
Avhat would have happened ? ’ and I should be in- 
cessantly tormented with doubts. No, should my 
heart be broken by what I see and hear, I must 
still go to the farm to-night, without being seen 
or expected, and then I shall know the truth.” 

‘‘You must let me go with you.” 

“ Come, then, if you choose. Now, let us re- 
sume our work, and be patient.” 

They took up their pens, but the heart of 
neither was in his labors. The columns of fig- 
ures swam before their eyes, and their thoughts 
were elsewhere. The hours passed slowly enough ; 
they seemed absolutely interminable, in the silence 
and gloom. The Barbels heard their tenant, 
Xavier Duprat, enter his rooms, and draw his 
chair up to his desk. Hyacinthe made a signifi- 
cant gesture, pointing with his pen to the ceil- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 105 

ing, as if to say : ‘‘You see, he is up there ; it is 
all a calumny ! ” To which Germain replied by 
a shrug of his shoulders. The sun by degrees 
left the glowing blossoms of the nasturtiums, 
lingered at the next windows above, and then 
touched the summit of the roof alone. In the 
court, still fragrant with spice, all was shadow, 
the humming of the bees had ceased ; then came 
Catherine to say that dinner was ready. They 
scarcely swallowed a mouthful ; the food stuck in 
their throats, and they sat with their elbows on 
the table in utter silence, the dessert untouched 
in front of them, until the twilight darkened the 
oak panels in the room. 

“ Let us go,” said the younger Lafrogne, as he 
pulled his felt hat over his eyes. “We will take 
the Route des Romains.” 

They passed down the Rue du Bourg, through 
several winding streets, and took the road which 
passes the Chanteraine vineyards. 

They walked without speaking. The night 
was dark, and without a moon — was appropriate 
for a rendezvous. When they were in the vicini- 
ty of Rembercourt, instead of following the road, 
they kept close to the walls which marked the 
boundaries of the farm, and then crossed the 
meadows. On the side toward the river there 
was a little door in the wall, of which Germain 
always kept the key. Through that door the 
brothers entered the enclosure, where all was 


106 the house of the two barbels. 


silent, save the nocturnal song of the crickets, 
whose monotonous chirps seemed like the breath 
of the slumbering meadows. 

During this time a peaceful calm was far from 
reigning within the rooms occupied by Laurence. 
Behind the closed blinds two voices disturbed the 
silence of the night : that of Laurence by turns 
entreating and irritated, the other insinuating and 
manly, and much resembling that of Monsieur 
Duprat. It was Xavier, in fact, whom Laurence 
had been foolish and headstrong enough to admit. 
Fearing that he would scale the wall, as he had 
threatened, she dared not lock the gate leading 
toward the forest. At nightfall, when it was quite 
certain that femme de had retired to 

her back-room in the attic, Duprat quietly walked 
into the small salon on the lower floor, where a 
light led him to suppose that he should And Ma- 
dame Lafrogne. 

Once established there, he promised himself 
not to be easily ousted, regarding this dainty, 
comfortable room as infinitely preferable to the 
damp forest. He employed his most persuasive 
eloquence to induce her to permit him to remain. 
He tossed his hat aside with scant ceremony, 
and stood quite undisturbed by all Madame La- 
frogne’s entreaties. 

“ Be reasonable,” she said, as she pushed a large 
arm-chair as a barrier between herself and him, 
and, leaning on the back, she repeated, “ be rea- 


■ THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 107 

sonable. I have given you the strongest possible 
proof of my confidence in you — do not force me 
to repent of it; and now leave me, I beg of you ! ” 

‘‘You are cruel, madame,” he replied, in a 
tone that was at once bold and insinuating ; 
“ after having brought me within sight of the 
promised land, do you suppose that I shall be con- 
tented with a distant view ? You think me more 
heroic than I am.” 

“ I think you are a man of honor — too much 
of a gentleman, and too much of a man of the 
world, to remain in the house of a woman against 
her will.” 

“ Love is not so respectful as you seem to im- 
agine, madame ; and I love you too passionately 
not to occasionally throw aside ordinary conven- 
tionalities. I will add,” he continued, with a 
slightly sarcastic intonation, “ that, the morning 
I found you in my room, you showed me very 
clearly that you, too, could sometimes rise above 
the prejudices of social life.” 

“ If I was reckless and foolish,” she murmured, 
coloring deeply, and casting down her eyes, “ it is 
not generous in you either to remind me of it or 
to take advantage of it.” 

“ Forgive me ! but are you, in your turn, al- 
together generous in destroying thus rudely the 
hope which you were the first to encourage ? ” 

“ What hope ? ” she exclaimed, angrily. “ Ex- 
plain yourself, for I fail to understand you.” 




108 the house of the two barbels. 

“ If I have been bold enough to hope,” he re- 
plied, “ is it not because from the very beginning 
I have been encouraged ? There are looks which 
are almost an oath of love, and I believe that I 
have read such a meaning in your eyes. In my 
loneliness I loved you silently, and as one without 
hope ; but, permit me to recall to you once more 
that it was you who drove me from the barrier 
of reserve behind which I had intrenched myself. 
It is you who are ungenerous — you, who are self- 
ish in rejecting my love after encouraging me to 
believe that you returned it.” 

' Indelicate as were these reproaches, they were 
well merited, and struck home to Madame La- 
frogne’s heart. Her head drooped in embarrass- 
ment at these thrusts. She realized that the con- 
test was most unequal ; nevertheless she had no 
thought of surrender, and she continued to strug- 
gle against the natural and most dangerous con- 
sequences of her previous heedlessness. 

I was thoughtless,” she murmured. “ I had 
no thought of levity,” and tears filled her eyes. 
“ I was blind ; but all you say will make me wiser 
in future, and never again will I merit similar re- 
proaches.” 

“ It is somewhat late in the day,” he answered, 
with a smile, as he put his hand on the chair to 
roll it aside. 

“No, sir,” said Laurence, recoiling against the 
wall, and retaining her hold on the back of the 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 109 


faiiteuil in which she found protection ; ‘‘ if you 
do not leave me at once, I swear to you that I 
will call Marianne ! ” 

“You will not do that,” answered Xavier, 
calmly ; “ for such an act would be the height of 
folly. No human being would believe that I 
came here without your consent. My presence at 
such an hour could only be explained by a com- 
plaisance on your part, and an esclandre would 
compromise me without excusing yourself.” 

This pitiless logic overwhelmed Laurence : she 
felt herself to be at the mercy of this man ; he 
held her morally in the hollow of his hands, 
and her powers of resistance grew momentarily 
weaker. 

“ Ah ! ” she stammered, in despau”, “ you are 
not the man I took you for. Where is your chiv- 
alry ? It is the condiict of a coward ! ” 

“ Xo,” he answered ; but his tone had changed, 
and his voice was tender and caressing — “no, it is 
the conduct of a lover ! — a lover whose heart is 
full of passionate adoration of you and your 
beauty ! Why are you so lovely ? Seeing you, I 
forget everything else. Do not be cruel ; let me 
lie at your feet and worship you ! I swear to 
you to be faithful and discreet ; I swear to de- 
vote to you all my youth, all my life ! You shall 
be the queen of my heart, the sovereign of all 
my thoughts. I will give you the happiness of 
which you have dreamed, and which you have 


110 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


never knoAvn, and we two will cherish the blessed 
secret. Grant me your confidence ; permit me to 
love you and serve you ! ” 

As he spoke he knelt at her feet so closely that 
he touched the folds of her dress. He tried to 
take the hands which she withdrew. Her eyes 
were riveted on his ; fascinated and trembling, 
she felt that the moment was at hand when she 
could no longer defend herself. 

Suddenly she heard the gravel on the garden- 
path crunch under rapid steps. Xavier started to 
his feet. 

“ Sultan ! Medor ! here ! ” exclaimed Germain, 
in a voice of thunder. 

‘‘ My husband ! I am lost ! ” murmured Lau- 
rence, leaning half fainting against the wall. 

The outer door opened. Duprat, pale and ter- 
rified, rushed toward the window, and, throwing 
open the blinds, was about to leap into the gar- 
den, when before him appeared the tall form of 
Hyacinthe flanked by the two watch-dogs, who 
growled in a most significant fashion. 

“ Xo one passes this way,” said the elder Bar- 
bel, phlegmatically ; ‘‘ go back ! ” 

Xavier recoiled, uncertain and bewildered, and 
found himself face to face with Germain, who 
had just entered the apartment. 

The husband’s eyes surveyed the room, and 
riveted themselves on Laurence still standing be- 
tween the wall and the fauteuil; then turned 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. HI 

upon Duprat, who had started back from Hya- 
cinthe’s presence as from a spectre. 

With one bound Germain darted on the incip- 
ient magistrate, and, seizing him by his cravat, 
launched at him the most opprobrious epithet 
known in the whole Meusian vocabulary — “ Ma- 
Idbre ! ” 

‘‘No violence, monsieur,” stammered Duprat. 
“ I will make no resistance, but do not be a brute.” 

With his wandering eyes, his pallid face, and 
trembling voice, his appearance was most pitiable.. 
Germain looked in the face of this tall fellow, 
whose manliness seemed to have taken flight, and 
whom terror had rendered as powerless as a wom- 
an. He took compassion upon him, and, regain- 
ing his self-possession as rapidly as the other had 
lost his, contented himself with shaking his treach- 
erous lodger flercely, and ,pushing him into an 
arm-chair, in which Duprat sat as helpless as a 
bundle of Avet linen. 

“ I do not choose to have any esclandre here,” 
said Germain, “and consequently I will not in- 
jure a hair of your head.” 

He went to the door, which was open, closed 
it carefully, and returned. 

“ Listen to me,” he resumed, slowly and dis- 
tinctly — “listen to me. I should like to wring 
your neck as I would a chicken’s ; and you know 
very well that your tribunal would punish me in 
no way whatever. But you are not worth the 


112 the house of the two barbels. 

trouble. You will leave Villotte at once ; ar- 
range your affairs so that after to-morrow I no 
longer shall find you in the town ; for, if ever I 
meet you in my path, nothing will restrain me ; 
and, as true as there is a God above, I will mur- 
der you then and there ! Now be off with you ! 
— Hyacinthe, take him to the gate.” 

Monsieur Duprat did not linger, and, with tot- 
tering limbs, bowed shoulders, and downcast eyes, 
bareheaded, and with disordered hair, turned tow- 
ard the door, not daring to hazard a glance at 
Laurence. 

‘‘You have forgotten your hat,” said Germain, 
in a calmly contemptuous tone. 

Xavier turned back timidly, snatched his hat, 
and put it on with a quick, uneasy gesture ; and, 
opening the door, went out on tiptoe. While he 
disappeared in the darkness, Germain stood with 
his arms folded, his face turned toward the door ; 
his tall, manly form, square shoulders, and fine 
head, were fronting Laurence, who had looked on 
like a statue at this unexpected dmo'dment. Great 
as were her terror and suspense, Madame Lafrogne 
could not but admire this rough huntsman — so 
calm and self-possessed — so entirely the master of 
himself, and so dignified in such a trying crisis. 
Involuntarily she compared him with the lover 
whose vacillating footsteps she still heard on the 
garden-Avalk. Was it possible that she had taken 
such a miserable coward for a hero ? She despised 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 113 

Xavier ; and shame and disgust overwhelmed her 
as she remembered that this man’s lips had touched 
her face. In one short moment ridicule had killed 
her guilty love. 

They heard Hyacinthe bolt the garden-gate. 
Germain then turned toward his wife, who ex- 
pected, with a sinking heart, an explosion of anger 
natural to an indignant husband under such cir- 
cumstances. “ Reassure yourself,” he said, calmly. 
‘‘ I have neither reproaches nor angry words for 
you. They would be useless, and I do not wish 
any scandal. For the honor of our family and 
our name, I will not have the village gossips gab- 
ble about our affairs. We will save appearances ; 
only you understand, of course, that between us 
for the future there will be no intimacy and no 
possible confidence. In fact, we shall be separated 
to all intents and purjDOses. I shall arrange to- 
morrow to live here the greater part of the time ; 
you will remain in our home at Villotte, and I will 
take care that you have all you require — ” 

Laurence made a gesture as if about to speak. 
He did not give her time to interrupt him, but 
continued, firmly : All will be as I say — and I 
insist on your obedience. You will live at Vil- 
lotte — Hyacinthe will take you there to-morrow — 
I have nothing more to say to you.” 

He opened the door, and went out without 
even another look at his wife, who had pushed 
aside the fauteuil SLud rushed toward her husband. 

8 


114 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BAKBELS. 

She wished to cast herself at his feet — to implore 
his pardon ; to pray him to listen to her expres- 
sions of shame, regret, and penitence. “Ger- 
main ! ” she cried, imploringly — “ Germain ! ” 

But he paid no attention to her — ^he did not 
seem even to hear her : he was talking with Hya- 
cinthe in the corridor. A few moments more and 
she heard him holt the entrance-door ; then he and 
his brother ascended the stairs, and the whole 
house was shortly buried in profound silence, in- 
terrupted only by the distant ripple of the river, 
and the soft, continuous murmur of the crickets 
in the garden. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The house of the two Barbels relapsed into a 
silence that was more profound and more melan- 
choly than that during the reign of Aunt Lenette. 
The shutters of the windows looking out on the 
Rue du Bourg remained hermetically sealed ex- 
cept for the space of two hours on each succeed- 
ing Saturday, when Catherine dusted the furni- 
ture and waxed the floors. The hall-door was not 
opened twice in the day. The interior, where car- 
pets softened every footstep, was as silent as a 
cloister, and every one spoke in whispers, as if in 
a church. ; T- 

Monsieur Xavier Duprat, like a prudent per- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 115 


son, had not waited until the day following his 
dismissal to remove himself and his belongings 
from the Lafrogne mansion. He took the first 
train that night which left for Metz. Once safe 
in the bosom of his family, he sought refuge in 
a pretense of illness, and intrusted to a colleague 
the care of sending him all his books and effects. 
A week later Germain found the rooms vacated 
and empty, and at once moved his own hooks and 
papers into them ; and there he slept when he was 
detained unexpectedly by business in town — the 
remainder of the time he lived at the farm. 

As to Laurence, her existence was that of a 
recluse and a penitent. Her first step had been 
to dismiss her maid, and content herself with the 
services of Catherine. Then she executed a grand 
reform in her wardrobe. She hade farewell to 
her bewitching toilets, to her knots of ribbon and 
her laces, and laid aside all the coquettish embel- 
lishments which she had so much enjoyed, and 
had found such pleasure in inventing. She wore 
a simple dress of black cashmere, close in the 
throat, and she locked up all her ornaments in 
her dressing-case. 

The furniture in her boudoir and salon were 
enveloped in their coverings ; the brasses and the 
lustres of rock-crystal were imprisoned in gauze. 
She lived exclusively in her sleeping-room, where 
a portrait of Aunt Lunette — an old pastel, with 
the colors half effaced — seemed to look at her re- 


116 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


proachfully from morning until night. She saw 
no one except Hyacinthe, and him only when they 
met at table, where he sat in melancholy silence, 
opposite his sister-in-law. 

They talked very little, and only when Cathe- 
rine was in the room ; but when they were tete-d- 
tUe the elder of the two Barbels was as mute as 
one of the fish on his sign. He ate with his nose 
in his plate ; when, sometimes, Laurence raised 
her eyes to him with a supplicating look, and he 
foresaw that she was about to make an appeal to 
his mercy, he turned away his head, and began a 
fluent conversation with the cat who was rubbing 
against his legs. Laurence had not the courage 
to persist. She comprehended that in Hyacinthe 
she had a righteously indignant judge ; all the 
more so, too, because he had been the last to be- 
lieve her unworthy. After dessert, Hyacinthe, 
folding up his napkin with punctilious care, inva- 
riably arose, went to the barometer, to which he 
gave two or three little taps, and murmured 
either, “ It will rain to-morrow ! ” or, ‘‘ The 
weather will be fine ! ” Then he heaved a big 
sigh, and glided noiselessly from the room. 

Germain was rarely present at these repasts — 
only on those evenings when he was obliged to 
remain in town — and then the dinner-table was 
even more lugubrious. Laurence dared hardly to 
lift her eyes or open her lips ; and, if her husband 
addressed a word to her, she fancied that each 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 117 


syllable veiled a bitter or contemptuous meaning. 
The first time that Germain took his seat at the 
family table, he sat in gloomy silence until the 
cloth was removed ; then, as he rose from his 
chair, he said to Laurence, without looking at 
her : 

‘‘ Marianne has been dismissed, it seems.” 

‘‘Yes, monsieur,” she answered, timidly; “she 
was a useless expense. I wish to become accus- 
tomed to waiting on myself.” 

“ Yes,” he answered, in a voice that was full 
of bitterness — “ yes, I see ; the girl could no 
longer be of use to you. I understand ! ” 

She believed that he thus intimated his belief 
that Marianne had been her accomplice at Rem- 
bercourt, and she began a denial ; but he closed 
her lips by a quick “ That will do ! ” and left the 
room with Hyacinthe. 

These thrusts from Germain were to her the 
bitterest of tortures. She felt that he looked 
upon her as infinitely more guilty than was really 
the case, and he felt for her the most absolute 
contempt. Sometimes, humiliated and saddened, 
she detei-mined to see him and try and Justify 
herself. Then she hesitated. She was afraid. 
She knew in advance that, as soon as she heard 
his first sarcastic word of doubt and disapproval, 
she would lose heart, and would injure the posi- 
tion of things rather than improve it. She con- 
cluded, therefore, to keep silent, and bide her time. 


118 THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 


She feared, in provoking an explanation, that she 
should lose her last hope and her last hold, and 
she wished much to retain both ! 

She was silent, therefore, not so much from 
policy or from pride as from a sentiment which 
was at once more scrupulous and more tender. She 
determined to regain Germain’s esteem, simply be- 
cause she was beginning to love her husband ! 

Yes, Laurence loved Germain Lafrogne. The 
labyrinth of a woman’s heart, so complicated and 
full of tangled paths, has strange turnings and 
marvelous surprises. Women submit irresistibly 
to the attraction of strength, and, like Madame 
Sganarelle, “ it pleases them to be beaten.” 

From the moment that Laurence had seen 
Xavier quail and turn pale under her husband’s 
eyes, she had no feeling save contempt for that 
cowardly lover ; and at the same moment her ad- 
miration for Germain sprang into being. 

Her first idol was thus thrown to the ground 
and shivered to atoms, but at the same instant a 
more imposing god appeared in the same place ; 
but not on the same pedestal, according to the 
rules of ancient mythology. The sang-froid shown 
by Germain ; the manner in which he had con- 
trolled his anger ; the savage grandeur and con- 
tempt with which he had dismissed the offender, 
and the haughty magnanimity he had shown tow- 
ard Laurence, had, one and all, made a strong 
impression on his wife. Far from thinking him 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 119 

now old-fashioned and ridiculous, she watched 
him with a certain timidity which is the beginning 
of love in many natures. The rusticity of the 
rough hunter had, in her eyes, a vivid coloring of 
reality, which she thought more beautiful than all 
the romantic sentimentalities that had formerly 
filled her imagination. She was conquered by the 
strength of the man, and she suffered cruelly in 
the knowledge of having offended him. To re- 
establish herself, therefore, in her husband’s es- 
teem was now her one thought and all-absorbing 
desire. But what steps should she take to con- 
vince him and exculpate herself ? How should 
she destroy Germain’s preconceived convictions ? 
How should she, with every appearance against 
her, and with no one to aid her — for even Hya- 
cinthe thought her guilty — convince her husband 
of her innocence ? 

She determined, at all events, to demonstrate 
to the two brothers that she was not the frivolous 
woman they took her to be ; that she was capable 
of becoming as good a housekeeper and manager 
as Aunt Lenette. She was not too proud to ask 
instruction from Catherine ; the house was kept 
with the strictest economy, and, as in the good 
old days, the two Barbels found their linen in per- 
fect order, and their winter and summer ward- 
robes always in readiness. Sometimes she shut her- 
self into her room, and interrogated Aunt Lenette’s 
faded portrait, asking the old pastel to inspire 


120 the house of the two barbels. 


her with a way of bringing back her husband’s 
heart ; but the withered features remained un- 
moved, and her severe gray eyes seemed to say 
to the unhappy penitent, I, too, have no faith in 
you ! ” 

One day, when turning over the contents of 
a secretary, she found a large blank-book with 
its leaves of greenish paper covered with large 
handwriting. It was the kind of volume which 
our fathers used wherein to inscribe both their 
daily expenses and the events of their domestic 
lives. All the patriarchal history of the La- 
frognes was artlessly narrated up to the hour 
when mademoiselle had been seized by her last 
illness. All Germain’s life was set. down from 
the day of his baptism. 

Laurence ran over these long columns of ac- 
counts with the interest she had formerly felt in 
devouring “ Valentine.” It seemed to her that in 
this way she entered more intimately into her 
husband’s personality ; and the perseverance with 
which she devoted herself to this retrospective 
reading demonstrated better than anything else 
how entirely she was ruled by the desire of weigh- 
ing her thoughts and emotions with those of Ger- 
main. 

There were a number of blank pages in the 
volume, which Laurence decided to use. She 
locked the volume in her desk, and from that time 
forth inscribed in it all her household expenses. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 121 


She went out little — in fact, she was seen only- 
on Sundays at the nine-o’clock mass. The town, 
of course, was naturally much occupied over the 
strange changes in the house of the two Barbels. 
The gossips had smelled out the isolated fact that 
some strange event had taken place, and they had 
chattered much over the strange way in which 
the husband and wife now lived. 

Delphin Nivard alone could have given the 
key of the mystery ; but, as his conscience was 
by no means clear, and he did not wish to have 
any personal knowledge of the strength of Ger- 
main’s rough grasp, he had put a martingale on 
his tongue, and contented himself with rolling the 
knowledge of the mischief he had done as a sweet 
morsel under his tongue. Weary of their inef- 
fectual efforts to elucidate the mystery, the scan- 
dal-mongers gave the matter up, and, when by 
chance Madame Lafrogne’s name arose in the con- 
versation, they shrugged their shoulders. “ She 
has a frightful temper,” said one. “ I am sorry 
for her husband,” said another. And there they 
stopped. 

As months went on, Laurence had lost both 
courage and patience. In spite of her twenty 
years a dull, heavy sorrow darkened the fairest 
days of the sunny summer which ought to have 
brought her only happiness. She said to herself 
that her spring-time had come to naught, and she 
compared herself mentally to a fruit-tree all cov- 


122 the house of the two barbels. 


ered with white blossoms struck by a sudden frost , 
in a chilly night. All was admirably prepared : 
golden stamens were set closely around the green 
pistil ; the sharp north wind had passed over 
them, and all was lost. The white corollas were 
still on the branches, but a little black spot was 
all that remained of the pistil ; the frost had 
done its work. Laurence was more miserable 
than the tree, for she knew that, if she had missed 
the promise of the spring-time, it was all her own 
fault. 

For some little time she had flattered herself 
with the hope that her changed life and her devo- 
tion to the house would touch the heart of its 
master, and that, regarding her penitence as now 
of long-enough duration, he would soften toward 
her, and finally pardon her. Now, however, she 
began to grow desperate. Nearly a year had ex- 
pired ; the anniversary of the fatal scene was close 
at hand, and as yet there was no indication of any 
relenting on Germain’s part. He spent his days 
at Rembercourt superintending his farm, or rush- 
ing through the woods like a wild huntsman. Lau- 
rence rarely saw him ; he appeared, to be sure, oc- 
casionally at Yillokte, but his presence there was 
very brief and infrequent. Sometimes, when her 
back was turned, he would cast stealthy glances in 
her direction — glances which were half of tender- 
ness, half of suspicion ; and at table he was often 
seized by a violent fit of coughing, as if he wished 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 123 


to strangle a sigli or repress some emotion. He 
would leave the table abruptly, and retire early to 
the room formerly occupied by Duprat, and would 
depart at daybreak. 

To catch a glimpse of him Laurence rose at an 
unheard-of hour, and, hidden behind her curtains, 
watched her husband’s every movement ; she fol- 
lowed him with her eyes as he made the rapid 
toilet of a sportsman. His active, out-of-door life 
had kept him young ; not a silvery hair lurked 
either in hair or beard. His brown eyes sparkled 
under their heavy black brows, and Laurence 
learned to look on him as handsome. 

If Germain was unsoftened and pitiless, Hya- 
cinthe had apparently relented. The elder Barbel 
did full justice to the efforts of his sister-in-law. 
As he was compassionate by nature, he pitied her, 
and one evening, when Germain had supped at 
Villotte, he ventured to approach the subject. 
“ My boy,” he said, as he accompanied his brother 
to his room, “ you are too hard on Laurence. I 
assure you that the child has much that is good 
in her, and that she is thoroughly repentant ; you 
ought to forgive her. A Christian spirit should 
practise forgiveness ! ” 

I have not a Christian spirit,” answered Ger- 
main, roughly ; ‘‘ I am a husband who has been 
once basely deceived, and who does not choose to 
put himself in the way of a second attempt of the 
same nature. A scalded cat, you know, is afraid 
even of cold water ! ” 


124 the house of the two barbels. 

“ But, Germain, you exaggerate the whole af- . 
fair — I am convinced that you do ; and that you 
have done so from the beginning. After all we 
heard of her conversation with that miserable Du- 
prat, it is clear that Laurence was not guilty, that 
her fault — which, remember, I have no intention 
of extenuating — was not irremediable ; and in sim- 
ple justice, besides being a part of our common 
law, the intention should never be looked upon as 
an act committed — ” 

“ Do you intend to repeat your special plead- 
ing in regard to Pharaoh’s cup and Benjamin’s 
sack ? ” interrupted Germain, sarcastically. “ You 
are not a good lawyer, my poor Hyacinthe. What 
does it matter if the fault stopped short of being 
a crime ? One thing is certain, which even you 
must admit, which is, that Laurence abused my 
confidence — ” 

“ And you have punished her ; and to-day she 
is most unhappy and penitent — ” 

“ Unhappy ! And am I not unhappy also ? ” 

“Possibly ; but perhaps it is only just that we 
should have our share of suffering, for all the 
wrong-doing is not on the side of Laurence. We, 
too, are in fault.” 

“ Indeed ! ” cried Germain, sarcastically ; “ and 
in what way are we in fault ? Is it because we 
took her without one penny, and gave her a com- 
fortable house, in which she lived like a queen ? ” 

“It is,” answered Hyacinthe, slowly, “that 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 125 


we took her from selfishness, and not from affec- 
tion. Come, now, my hoy, let us be honest, and 
admit the fact that, in your marriage, we consult- 
ed our interests exclusively, and thought little of* 
hers. Laurence was, in our eyes,' simply a house- 
keeper, better born, better educated, and better 
bred, than we could hope to obtain in any other 
way. We did not say to ourselves that she was 
rich, and we were old ; that she needed the amuse- 
ments and distractions befitting her years, and that 
we were shutting her up in the four walls of our 
old house, dear to us, but dreary, possibly, to any 
one who had not any early associations with it. 
Now, in my opinion, if we wish to be loved by 
people, we must love them for themselves, and 
not alone for the use they may be to us. These 
are our faults, my boy. They, of course, do not 
excuse hers ; but, according to my humble judg- 
ment, they are enough to make us more lenient 
in our treatment of her. I wished to say this to 
you to-night, and now I leave you to your own 
reflections. Good-night ! ” 

“ Good-night,” grumbled the younger Barbel, 
as he shut his door. 

Germain slept very badly. When he rose the 
sun just grazed the wall in the court-yard, and the 
swallows chirped loudly in the eaves. He lighted 
his pipe, and, throwing open his blinds, sat down 
by the window to smoke. The house was still 
buried in slumber. Catherine, dulled by years. 


126 the house of THE TWO BARBELS. 

was less alert than of yore, and was late in de- 
scending to the kitchen. Opposite, at Madame 
Lafrogne’s window, the curtains were still closely 
drawn. A cock crowed lustily in the poultry- 
yard, and the angelus was sounding from the Do- 
minican monastery. At this moment, the door of 
the house opened, and Laurence, wrapped in a 
gray peignoir^ with uncovered head and loosely- 
flowing sleeves, stepped out into the court — into 
the freshness of the morning. She, too, had slept 
but indifferently ; no longer having a maid, she 
had acquired the habit of rising very early, and, 
to save Catherine’s old legs, went regularly to the 
pump for the cool water she needed for her morn- 
ing ablutions. She went to the green basin, 
around which grew tufts of calceolaria, hung her 
bucket on the copper spout, and, lifting the heavy 
iron handle with her slender hands, began to pump 
slowly. 

A recollection of other days came to Germain’s 
sad heart. He remembered the first night Lau- 
rence passed at Villotte, and every minute detail 
of that morning, when he filled her pitcher at that 
same old pump. She was so pretty in those days, 
so bright and so gay ! — but perhaps her real beauty 
was greater now. As she stooped and rose again 
with the handle, the soft folds of her peignoir 
marked the undulating lines of her shoulders and 
her hips ; one of her sleeves fell back and showed 
the small black mole which had formerly attracted 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 127 

Germaines admiring attention. The water fell 
into the bucket with a musical glou-glou. Out of 
breath with her labors, Laurence stopped, and, 
throwing back her head, lifted her eyes toward the 
bit of blue sky above her, framed as it were by 
the roofs and towers around. A light cough, com- 
ing from behind one of the blinds in her husband’s 
room, startled her ; she colored and dropped her 
eyes, for she saw the light smoke from Germain’s 
pipe ; and, in her turn, she remembered that first 
morning at Yillotte, and the huge pitcher of water 
so gallantly procured for her by the rough sports- 
man. 

During this time, Germain, half angry with 
himself for his weakness, thought seriously of go- 
ing down the stairs and of taking the bucket from 
his wife and carrying it to her room. His hand 
was already on the handle of the door. “ No,” he 
thought, “ I should look like a fool ! ” and he went 
back again. 

The bucket flowed over and drenched the front 
of ihQ peignoir. Laurence sighed, then snatched 
up the bucket, and the door closed upon her. 
“ He is pitiless,” she said, as she crossed the ves- 
tibule; “if he felt the least friendship for me, he 
would have come down. It is all over — I must 
give up all hope of his forgiveness, and there is 
but one course open for me.” 

All the rest of the day she shut herself in her 
room with Aunt Lenette’s old account-book. 


128 the house of the two barbels. 


Germain was not there, he had returned to Rem- 
her court ; that night at supper, just as Hyacinthe 
left the table and went to his barometer to con- 
sult it, Laurence spoke. ‘‘ I beg your pardon,” she 
said, timidly, ‘‘ but may I ask you something ? ” 
“Most assuredly, my dear child,” answered 
Hyacinthe. 

“ Will you take me to the farm to-moiTow ? ” 

“ To the farm ? ” he repeated, in great aston- 
ishment. It seemed to him the very last place 
which Laurence would think of revisiting. “ To 
the farm ! and whom do you wish to see there ? ” 
“ I wish to speak to my husband — to Monsieur 
Lafrogne.” 

“ But he was here yesterday. Why did you 
not take advantage of that occasion ? Why did 
you not speak to him then ? ” 

“ Because I had not then formed the resolution 
which to-day I have decided ui>on, and of which 
I wish to inform him.” 

“You shall do as you will, my dear child; but 
I must suggest to you that the locality is ill- 
chosen, and — Germain is by no means amiable.” 

“I have already thought of that. We will 
start early, shall we not ? ” 

“At whatever hour you choose. But is the 
matter really so urgent ? Can you not wait for 
a more favorable opportunity?” 

“ No — it is impossible. I cannot wait ! ” 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BAEBELS. 129 


CHAPTER X. 

Nine o’clock sounded from the church at Fains. 
The clear notes of the clock passed over the woods, 
still fresh with the dew of the morning, and en- 
tered the open window of Germain’s room. But 
this was not the only sound which found its way 
in. There were the snapping of the boatmen’s 
whips from the canal, the flutter of wings and the 
cries of the wild-ducks, and the dull sound of the 
scythe in the meadow. Germain, with his foot 
on a chair, was buttoning his gaiters, preparing 
to depart for a day in the woods, when suddenly 
he heard the sound of wheels in the court-yard, 
and he thought he recognized the impatient snort- 
ing of the small Corsican ponies that were driven 
only in his wife’s basket-wagon. He started, and 
listened intently. A few moments more, and a 
light step — so light that he was not certain that 
he was not deceived by his imagination — came up 
the steps. He listened ; his ear caught the rustle 
of a woman’s skirts, and some one knocked timidly 
at his door. 

“ Come in ! ” he cried, impatiently. 

Laurence appeared on the threshold, still wear- 
ing her simple black dress ; a light veil covered 
her face, which was excessively pale, and against 
her bosom, which rose and fell from agitation and 
9 


130 the house of the two barbels. 


from her rapid ascent of the stairs, she held a 
small package wrapped in paper. 

“ You here ! ” exclaimed Germain, in profound 
amazement. 

“ Hyacinthe is down-stairs,” she answered, as 
if in apology for her presumption ; “ I came up 
alone, because I wished to speak to you in private.” 

“ Come in and shut the door. What do you 
wish to say to me ? ” 

“I have come to ask your permission to go 
away.” 

“ To go away ? ” He looked at her in wonder. 
“ And where would you go ? ” 

“ To the only house where I could live with- 
out being a burden to any one — ^to my mother’s.” 

“ Ah ! what induces you to believe that you 
are a burden to any one here ? ” 

“ One is always a burden to people when one 
eats their bread without being either useful or 
agreeable. I understand myself and my position 
perfectly. I know that I have neither your affec- 
tion nor your respect; that you allow me to remain 
under your roof only out of regard for public 
opinion and to avoid scandal ! ” 

“ And you think this unjust ? ” 

“E'o ; I do not complain. I know that you 
have a right to behave toward me with far greater ' 
severity. Only, you would have been less cruel 
had you sent me away at once, rather than have 
brought me to this humiliating condition. My 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 131 


punishment has been too severe. I was patient 
for months — because I continually hoped and be- 
lieved — ” She colored and checked herself abrupt- 
ly as she saw that she was on the point of betray- 
ing herself. Germain looked his wife straight in 
the eyes, as if to read in them the conclusion of 
her unfinished sentence. 

Go on ! ” he said ; “ what did you believe ? ” 

‘‘ I believed that I should have strength enough 
to accept your contempt as my punishment — I be- 
lieved that I could lay aside my natural pride and 
endure my position, which is neither that of a 
wife nor of a servant. But I cannot — no, I can- 
not ! ” 

Her voice trembled; it was easy to see that she 
was making a great effort to repress the sobs that 
were ready to burst from her lips. Germain had 
turned away his head, and was looking fixedly at 
the opposite wall. 

A long silence ensued. From without came 
the sound of a scythe sharpened upon a grind- 
stone, and the flies buzzed in the sunny window. 

‘‘ I am not an utter churl,” answered Germain, 
in a restrained voice. ‘‘I had no intention of 
keeping you a i)risoner here ; and you can go 
away, if such is your wish.” 

“I will leave to-morrow, then. But, before 
going, I must give you an account of the money 
which you have intrusted to me for the house.” 
She opened the package which she held in her 


132 the house of the two barbels. 

hand, and drew out Aunt Lenette’s old account- 
book. “ In this you will find the memoranda of 
all my expenditures,” she continued, “ and this is 
the money I have in hand.” 

She placed the account-book and a small roll 
of gold-pieces on the table, while Germain made 
a gesture of refusal. 

Forgive me,” she said, insisting ; “ I prefer 
that you should know that all is in order before I 
leave.” 

Lafrogne started from his chair, and walked 
slowly up and down the small room, with his head 
bowed upon his chest. When his steps brought 
him near the window, he murmured, without turn- 
ing toward his wife : 

Is it to-morrow, then — irrevocably ? ” 

“Yes, to-morrow ; I will take the ten-o’clock 
train.” 

She hesitated for a moment — ^hoping against 
hope for one word of kindness from him, and un- 
willing to depart until he spoke to her ; but he 
did not turn toward her. Tears filled his wife’s 
eyes, but she dared not speak again. With an 
effort she stammered, “ Good-by ! ” but in so low 
a tone, and so indistinctly, that it would have 
been difficult for any one to decide whether it 
was the beginning of a sob or an attempt at the 
articulation of a word. Then she opened the 
door and slowly descended the stairs. A few 
moments more, and the horses champed their bits. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 133 

and the basket-wagon rolled down the avenue. 
Germain then turned around, his strong features 
were violently agitated ; he perceived the account- 
book lying on the table, and, seating himself with 
a sombre countenance, opened it mechanically. 
He suddenly felt himself much disturbed by an 
emotion which betrayed itself by a slight trem- 
bling of his lips and of his chin under his curly 
beard ; he had recognized the old family memo- 
randum-book — the old one with its parchment 
cover, wherein ancestor after ancestor had in- 
scribed the expenses and remarkable events of 
his house. 

Turning over the leaves, he lighted upon a 
page at the top of which were these words in 
Mademoiselle Lenette’s handwriting : 

“To-day, March 23, 1822, my nephew, Ger- 
main Lafrogne, was born.” 

It seemed to him that he should discover bur- 
ied under the dead leaves of many and many a 
summer all the recollections of his boyhood — 
since the day when, wearing his first breeches, he 
had been taken by his aunt to the good Sisters’ 
school, up to that glorious morning when, followed 
by his dog Phanor, he had gone out, the first 
time, for a day’s shooting. 

He turned over the yellow pages. Upon cer- 
tain words a few grains of blue sand had dried 
into the writing, and now caught the sunlight 
on their metallic surface, while for so long a 


134 the house of the two barbels. 


time the hands which had scattered this dust lay 
rigid and fleshless under the sand in the cemetery. 
Germain recognized the coarse writing of his 
grandfather Thoire, and the regular slope of his 
Aunt Lunette. Then, as he turned a leaf, he reached 
the elegant and flowing characters inscribed by 
Laurence. By the side of the larger commercial 
hand these delicately-made letters had the look 
of dainty flowers bending over a graveled walk. 
He began to decipher them attentively, forget- 
ting that the day was growing old, and that the 
sun was streaming into the widely-opened win- 
dows. 

He noticed, not without a feeling of tender 
surprise, with what minute and almost pious care 
the house had been managed during this portion 
of his wife’s reign. Nothing had been neglected 
or omitted ; she had thought of everything, from 
the arrangements for the great semi-annual 
wash to the renewal of the flowers planted 
around the tomb of Mademoiselle Lenette ; the 
favorite dishes of Hyacinthe were all set dovm in 
order, as well as those of her husband. On every 
page were indications of her regard for Germain’s 
comfort — the warm clothing prepared and sent 
to Rembercourt the last of October ; the fresh 
linen sent out each week to the farm ; even a mem- 
orandum was made that certain cold pdthy pre- 
pared by Catherine, should be sent out to the farm 
in readiness for her husband’s shooting-parties. 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 135 

i^'ot a day had passed that some portion of it had 
not been spent in his service. 

He turned the leaves over more and more 
slowly, until he reached a page where the writing 
ended half-way down. A few scattered rose- 
leaves lay there as a signature, they were already 
half dry, hut they breathed still a faint perfume, 
as faint and sweet as the farewell that Laurence 
had sighed as she went away an hour ago. And 
it was all over ! No one would ever again write 
another line on those unfilled pages. The old 
book bequeathed by their grandfather to his 
children, which Laurence had considered it her 
duty to bring out again, would now be closed 
once more and forever. And why not? Such 
books are only precious in families that are per- 
petuated, and Hyacinthe and Germain would die 
without posterity in their melancholy solitude. 
All was over. Laurence was going away, and 
with her all that remained of life and cheerfulness 
in the old house would also go, and the dwelling 
would once more become the silent home of the 
two Barbels. They two, some night, would burn 
the old memorandum-book, lest, when they were 
gone, it should be sold with a lot of useless paper 
to some manufacturer, who would make paste- 
board boxes of leaves covered with the writings 
of their grandfather, of Aunt Lenette, and of lit- 
tle Laurence ! 

No one could see anything that was going on 


136 the house of the two barbels. 

in that little room so high up— no one, at least, 
except the birds in the fruit-trees opposite, or the 
swallows which flew past the windows. No indis- 
creet eyes, therefore, could detect the tears which 
slowly dropped from Germain’s eyes, and buried 
themselves in his heavy beard. Besides, his head 
was dropped low upon the book, as if to conceal 
his emotion from the very birds in the garden. 
His face was so close to the yellow pages, so close, 
that suddenly his lips were pressed to the dry 
rose-leaves. The rough huntsman had kissed the 
page! 

During this time the basket-wagon, with its 
Corsican ponies, was rapidly taking Hyacinthe 
and Laurence back to Villotte. They exchanged 
few words on their way. The elder of the two 
Barbels uttered an occasional profound sigh, and 
Madame Lafrogne struggled with her tears. As 
soon as they had reached the Rue du Bourg, Lau- 
rence wrote to her mother, and prepared for her 
departure. She would carry away only her modest 
trousseau ; and her trunks were soon packed. 
Toward evening she gave her last directions to 
Catherine, and begged her brother-in-law to come 
up and help her to fasten the straps on her 
boxes. 

While the brave Hyacinthe, much disturbed, 
but not daring to oppose a departure which had 
been approved by Germain, knotted the cords in 
the most careful and conscientious manner, Lau- 


THE HOUSE OF THE TWO BARBELS. 137 


rence was placing labels on all the keys of the 
wardrobes. 

“ Everything is in order,” she said, when Hy- 
acinthe had finished his task. ‘‘Here are the 
keys ; they are all numbered, and you will have 
no difficulty in finding anything you want.” 

She held the bunch toward her brother-in-law, 
but Lafrogne’s fingers were so stiff and benumbed 
that the keys fell noisily on the floor. 

This noise was so loud that they did not either 
of them hear a knock at the door. The handle 
turned, and Germain, all red, sunburned, and 
dusty, entered the room. He looked at the corded 
boxes arranged along the wall. “ So,” he said to 
Laurence, who had grown very pale, “you have 
decided to go ? ” 

“ Yes, I must ! ” she stammered. 

“ Ah ! well,” he cried, “ in that case we will go 
together. It is not proper that my wife should 
travel alone.” 

Madame Lafrogne’s black eyes opened widely. 
She trembled, and dared not accept the evidence 
of her ears ; but Hyacinthe understood instantly, 
and shook his brother’s hands eagerly. 

“ That is right, my boy ! ” he exclaimed. 
“ Kow, kiss her ! ” 

Laurence threw herself into her husband’s arms, 
and, burying her head on the broad breast of her 
rough sportsman, burst into tears. 

Laurence and Germain traveled for five 




138 the house of the two barbels. 

months. When they returned to Yillotte, in De- 
cember, the emotion caused by all the events 
which we have related had had time to calm 
down, and the husband and wife quietly took pos- 
session of their house in the Rue du Bourg. 

Monsieur Xavier Duprat never again appeared 
at Villotte ; but the disagreeable adventure which 
had marked his dehut in that little town did not 
by any means prevent him from making his way 
in the world. He belonged to the school of those 
young lawyers who combine self-sufficiency with 
artifice, and who, having more ambition than 
principle, are never hampered by their opinions 
or by their consciences. In 1871 he found in the 
ministry, and among the National Assembly, 
some old friends whose influence was all-power- 
ful, and by whose aid he was able to obtain a 
position as procureur, while waiting for some- 
thing better. 

His eloquence and strict propriety were in 

great favor in the court-room at X ; and, when 

he delivered a speech in a trial for adultery, the de- 
nunciations of this inflexible magistrate made the 
guilty parties shiver in their seats, and impressed 
the jury to a marvelous extent. Occasionally, 
honest Hyacinthe, who retained the habit of 
looking over the Gazette des Trihunaux, would 
come across one of these virulent speeches of 
Monsieur le Procureur Duprat, and the perusal 
of the pompous phrases upon “ the perversion of 


THE HOUSE OP THE TWO BARBELS. 139 


contemporary manners, and the contempt shown 
for the sacred laws of honor and morality,” 
would put him out of humor for the rest of 
the day. His face grew scarlet with indigna- 
tion, as he exclaimed aloud, throwing down the 
unfortunate journal ; “ Hypocrite ! vile syco- 

phant ! ” 

Fortunately, the elder of the two Barbels 
found in his home, in the Rue du Bourg, sweet 
compensations for any hitter drops in his cup. 

He has become an uncle, for, some five months 
after the return of his brother and his wife, Lau- 
rence gave birth to a boy, whom they named 
Claude, in memory of his grandfather. The child 
was borne to the baptismal font by Hyacinthe 
and Madame de Coulaines. The boy is healthy 
and vigorous, and there is every indication that 
the name of Lafrogne will not disappear from the 
civil list. 

Thanks to him, too, the house of the two 
Barbels is once more filled with childish laughter, 
a sound which, for forty years, had been unheard 
in its long corridors and lofty rooms. 

Hyacinthe has grown young again ; and when, 
on sunny mornings, he takes the infant in his arms 
and walks up and down the pavement before the 
fa9ade on the Rue du Bourg, the sirens under 
the windows and the cherub over the door 
seem also to be rejuvenated by the arrival of 
the youthful guest. They welcome him gayly 


140 the house of the two barbels. 


from the heights of their leafy capitals ; and the 
baby, radiant with delight and wonder, exchanges 
smiles with those strange, chubby faces, whose 
mouths stretch with merry laughter from ear to 
ear. 


THE END. 


APPLETONS’ 


Litirary of American Tiction. 


Consisting of Select Novels by A merican A uthors ; published in 
neat 8vo volumes, at popular prices. 


I, VALERIE AYLMER. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

II. THE LADY OP THE ICE. By James De Mllle. With Il- 
lustrations. Papier, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

III. MORTON HOUSE. By the author of “ Valerie Aylmer.” 

With Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1,25. 

IV. RIGHTED AT LAST. A Novel. With Illustrations. Paper, 

PATttQ • OK 

V. MABEL l’eE. By the author of ‘‘Morton House.” Paper, 

VI. DOCTOR VAND’A;'e. ' By John Esten Cooke. With Ulus- 

trations. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

VII. EBB-TIDE AND OTHER STORIES. By the author of 

‘‘Morton House.” With Illustrations. Paper, 75 cents; 
cloth $1 25- 

VIII. AN OPEN QUESTION. By James De Mille. With Illus- 

trations. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

IX. SPICY. A Novel. By Mrs. Martha J. Lamb. With Illus- 
trations. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

X. LAKEVILLE ; or, Substance and Shadow. By Mary Heart, 
author of ‘‘A Summer’s Romance,” etc. Illustrated. Pa- 
per, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

XI. NINA’S ATONEMENT, AND OTHER STORIES. By Chris- 
tian Reid, author of ‘‘Morton House,” etc. Illustrated. 
Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

XII. A DAUGHTER OP BOHEMIA. By Christian Reid. Pa- 
per, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

Xni. HEARTS AND HANDS. A Story in Sixteen Chapters. By 
Christian Reid, author of ‘‘A Daughter of Bohemia,” 
‘‘Morton House,” ‘‘Valerie Aylmer,” etc. 8vo. Paper, 50 

C6tltS 

XIV, LITTLE JOANNA. A Novel. By Kamba Thorpe. Paper, 
60 cents. 

XV. BRESSANT. A Novel. By Julian Hawthorne. Paper, 
75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

XVI. THE LAND OP THE SKY; or, Adventures in Mountain By- 

ways. By Christian Reid. Illustrated. Paper, 75 cents 
cloth, $1.25. 

XVII. APTER MANY DAYS. A Novel. By Christian Reid au- 

thor of ‘‘ A Question of HonV,” ‘‘Morton House,” ‘‘Valerie 
Aylmer,” etc. 8vo. Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

XVIIL GARTH. A Novel. By Julian Hawthorne, author of 
‘‘ Bressant,” ‘‘ Saxon Studies,” etc. 8vo. Paper, 75 cents ; 
cloth, $1.25. ^ * T. V. 

XIX. BONNY KATE. By Christian Reid, author of ‘‘ A Daughter 
of Bohemia,” ‘‘Morton House,” ‘‘Valerie Aylmer,” etc. 
Paper, 75 cents ; cloth, $1.25. 

2?. APPLETON & CO., 549 & 551 Broadway, New York. 


WORKS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 


POETICAL WORKS. Illustrated with 100 of the finest Wood- 
Engravings, by the most eminent English and American 
Artists. 1 vol., 8vo. Cloth, gilt edge, $4.00; half calf, 
$6.00; morocco, antique, $8.00; tree calf, $10.00. 

3 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $4.60; extra cloth, gilt edges, 

$6.00 ; half calf, extra, $9.00 ; morocco, antique or extra, 

$ 12 . 00 . 

Red-line edition. With 24 Illustrations, and Portrait 

of Bryant, on Steel. Printed on tinted paper, with red 
line. Square 12mo. Cloth, extra, $3.00; half calf, $5.00 ; 
morocco, antique, $7.00. 

1 vol., 18mo. Blue and gold, $1.25 ; calf or morocco 

antique, $3.00. 

LETTERS FROM SPAIN AND OTHER COUNTRIES. 1 
vol., 12mo. Price, $1.26. 

THE SONG OF THE SOWER. Hlustrated with 42 Engrav- 
ings on Wood, from Original Designs by Hennessy, Fenn, 
Winslow Homer, Hows, Griswold, Nehlig, and Perkins; 
engraved in the most perfect manner by our best Artists. 
Elegantly printed and bound. Cloth, extra gilt, $5.00; 
morocco, antique, $9.00. 

THE STORY OF THE FOUNTAIN. With 42 Illustrations 
by Harry Fenn, Alfred Fredericks, John A. Hows, Wins- 
low Homer, and others. In one handsome quarto volume. 
Printed in the most perfect manner, on heavy calendered 
paper. Uniform with “The Song of the Sower.” 8vo. 
Square cloth, extra gilt, $5.00 ; morocco, antique, $9.00. 

THE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE SNOW. Illustrated with 
exquisite Engravings, printed in Tints, from Designs by 
Alfred Fredericks. Cloth, $5.00 ; morocco, $9.00. 


D. APPLETON & CO., 649 & 661 Broadway, New York. 


JUST PUBlilSSlED. 



CONSISTING OF FIVE BOOKS. 


By Wm. T. Harris, LL. D., Supt. of Schools, St. Louis, Mo. ; Andrew 
J. Rickoef, a. M., Supt. of Instruction, Cleveland, O. ; and 
Mark Bailey, A. M., Instructor in Elocution, Yale College. 


Appletons’ First Reader 90 pages. 

Appletons’ Second Reader 142 “ 

Appletons’ Third Reader 214 “ 

Appletons’ Fourth Reader 248 “ 

Appletons’ Fifth Reader 360 “ 


These Readers, while avoiding extremes and one-sided ten- 
dencies, combine into one harmonious whole the several results 
desirable to be attained in a series of school reading-books. 
These include good pictorial illustrations, a combination of the 
word and phonic methods, careful grading, drill on the peculiar 
combinations of letters that represent vowel-sounds, correct 
spelling, exercises well arranged for the pupil’s preparation by 
himself (so that he shall learn the great lessons of self-help, 
self-dependence, the habit of application), exercises that develop 
a practical command of correct forms of expression, good lit- 
erary taste, close critical power of thought, and ability to in- 
terpret the entire meaning of the language of others. 

The high rank which the authors have attained in the edu- 
cational field and their long and successful experience in prac- 
tical school-work especially fit them for the preparation of 
text-books that embody all the best elements of modern educa- 
tive ideas. In the schools of St. Louis and Cleveland, over 
which two of them have long presided, the subject of reading 
has received more than usual attention, and with results that 
have established for them a wide reputation for superior elo- 
cutionary discipline and accomplishments. 

Of Prof. Bailey, Instructor of Elocution in Yale College, it 
is needless to speak, for he is known throughout the Union as 
being without a peer in his profession. His methods make nat- 
ural^ not mechanical readers. 


D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, 649 «fc 561 Broadway, New York. 


PRIMERS 

IN SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND LITERATURE. 

18mo. . . . Flexible cloth, 46 cents each. 


I. — Edited by Professors HUXI 
STEW 

SCIENCE 

Chemistry . . H. E. Roscoe. 
Physics . . Balfour Stewart. 
Physical Geography, A. Gei- 

KIE. 

Geology .... A. Geikie. 
Physiology • • . M. Foster. 

Political Econon 

.EY, ROSCOE, and BALFOUR 
^ART. 

PRIMERS. 

Astronomy . J. N. Lockter. 
Botany . . . J. D. Hooker. 
Logic • . . . W. S. Jevons. 
Inventional Geometry, W. G. 

Spencer. 

Pianoforte, Franklin Taylor. 
ly, W. 8. Jevons. 

II. — Edited by J. ' 
Examiner in the School of 

HISTORY 

Greece .... C. A. Ftffe. 

Rome . . . . M. Creighton. 

Europe . . . E. A. Freeman. 

History of Europ 

R. GREEN, M.A., 

Modern History at Oxford. 

PRIMERS. 

Old Greek Life, J. P. Mahafft. 
Roman Antiquities, A. S. Wil- 
kins. 

Geography . George Grove. 
e, E. A. Freeman. 

III.— Edited by J. 

LITERATUR 

English Grammar, R. Morris. 
English Literature, Stopford 
Brooke. 

Philology . . . . J. Peile. 

Greek Literati 

{^Others in ]. 

R. GREEN, M. A. 

E PRIMERS. 

Classical Geography, M. F. 
Tozer. 

Shakespeare . . E. Dowden. 
Studies in Bryant, J. Alden. 
ire, R. C. Jebb. 

yreparaiion.) 


The object of these primers is to convey information in such a 
manner as to make it both intelligible and interesting to very young 
pupils, and so to discipline their minds as to incline them to more 
systematic after-studies. They are not only an aid to the pupil, but 
to the teacher, lightening the task of each by an agreeable, easy, and 
natural method of instruction. Tn the Science series some simple 
experiments have been devised, leading up to the chief truths of each 
science. By this means the pupil's interest is excited, and the memory 
is impressed so as to retain without difficulty the facts brought under 
observation. The woodcuts which illustrate these primers serve the 
same purpose, embellishing and explaining the text at the same time. 

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. 


Collection of Foreign Authors 


The design of the “Collection of Foreign Authors ” is to give 
selections from the better current light literature of France, Ger- 
many, and other countries of the European Continent, translated by 
competent hands. The series is published in uniform i 6 mo vol- 
umes, at a low price, and bound in paper covers and in cloth. 


I. 

SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY. A 
Novel. From the French of Victor 
Cherbuliez - 

PAPER. 

$0.60 

CLOTH. 

$ 1.00 

II. 

GERARDOS MARRIAGE. A Novel. From 
the French of Andre Theuriet - - 

•50 

•75 

111 . 

SPIRITE. A Fantasy. From the French of 
Theophile Gautier 


•75 

IV. 

THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT. From 
the French of George Sand . - - - 

•50 

•75 

V. 

META HOLDENIS. A Novel. From the 
French of Victor Cherbuliez - - 

•50 

•75 

VI. 

ROMANCES OF THE EAST. From the 
French of Comte de Gobineau 

.60 

1. 00 

VII. 

RENEE AND FRANZ, From the French 
of Gustave Haller 

•50 

•75 

VIII. 

MADAME GOSSELIN. From the French of 
Louis Ulbach 

.60 

it. 

1. 00 

IX. 

THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS. From 
the French of Andre Theuriet - - - 

•50 

•75 

X. 

ARIADNE. From the French of Henry 
Greville 


•75 


D. APPLETON & 00., PubUshera, New York, 


Either of the above volumes sent by mail, post-paid, to any address in the 
United States or Canada, upon receipt of the price. 


APPLETONS’ 

New Handy-Volume Series. 

Brilliant Novelettes; Bomance, Adventure, Travel, 
Humor; Historic, Literary, and 
Society Monographs. 


VOLUMES PUBLISHED. 

1. Jet: Her Face or her Fortune? A Story, By Mrs. Annie 

Edwardes. Price, 30 cents. 

2. A Struggle. A Story. By Barnet Phillips. Price, 26 cents. 

3. Misericojdia. A Story. By Ethel Lynn Linton. Price, 20 

cents. 

4. Gordon Baldwin, and The Philosopher’s Pendulum. 

By Rudolph LindaUj Price, 26 cents. 

5. The Fisherman of Auge. A Story. By Katharine S. Mac- 

QUOiD. Price, 20 cents. 

6. The Essays of Elia. First Series. By Charles Lamb. Price, 

30 cents. 

7. The Bird of Passage. By J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Price, 

26 cents. 

8. The House of the Two Barbels. By Andre Theuriet. 

Price, 20 cents. 

9. Lights of the Old English Stage. Price, 30 cents. 

IN PJtEPARATION. 

Liquidated. A Story. By Rudolph Lindau, 

Mrs. Gainsborough’s Diamonds. By Julian Hawthorne. 
L’Arrabiata, and other Stories. By Paul Heyse. 
Clytemnestra, and other Stories. By the late Albert Webster. 

The Goldsmith’s Wife. 

Carlyle : His Life — his Books — his Theories. Etc., etc,, etc. 

Any volume in the series mailed post-paid, to any address within the 
United States, on receipt of the price. 

D. APPLETON A CO.j 649 & 661 Broadway^ N. Y. 



\ 












vV vv 

♦ 

IJu'vjU 


^ • vT"' *S NL> • •C'-' ■ - ' 

' ; 'w ^ v^ ‘W ' •'r*- ^ 

y ^ V- 

• 1 * ' 

W ' V 

•A , ,1 ■ w 

V 

V'V 

V ' - 
vw 

w • 

w"'w 

• 

■ r ^ .,^UU „ -• :.' 

^ • 

i 


,.y^. 









